E-MAIL ME COMMENTS:
jordan@jordanbastian.com
PAST ENTRIES
----------------------
I'm Full
Happy Thanksgiving
The Bank Teller
Hitting the Streets
Lazy Sunday
I'm Full, We're back in St. Joe's after a fun holiday weekend in Chicago with Kell's family. It was quite an eventful four days. On Thursday, after we all got fat together (mmmm) we had Barkley, Kell's family's dog Sammy, and Kelly's brother Kyle's girlfriend Stephanie's (you follow me there?) Coco all together for the first time. They are all little Shihtzus. Sam and Bark wanted nothing to do with Coco, who is still practically a puppy and was only interested in violating the other dogs' space. The food was awesome on Thanksgiving, too. Kelly made a cheesecake that I think I ate half of myself. She didn't even get a piece! Sorry babe. And I stuffed myself with tons of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatos and all the other Turkey Day goodies. I had to work on Friday, but came back home late that night -- after almost setting my apartment on fire! I came home to relax a little after work and decided to fire up the oven and pop in a frozen pizza. Well, whatever Kell cooked in there last left some gooey stuff on the bottom of the stove. The whole apartment filled up with smoke and all the fire detectors were going off (at 1 in the morning). I had to open both windows in the front room (VERY COLD), had to run a fan and stand on a chair and wave a pillow in front of the detector to get it to stay off. I was doing this for about 20 minutes. It was cold and smoky and not fun. We all just chilled out on Saturday. Well, not in the morning. Barkley had a vet's appointment (he doesn't have glaucoma! woohoo!) and so we stopped by my sister Lynn's to say hi. Her huge yellow lab D.O.G. -- that's his name -- broke through his gate cuz he was so excited to see Barkley, his old roommate, and he ran through a door that Kelly was standing in. He smashed Kell to the side with all 80-90 pounds of himself and she crushed her hand on the door frame. Her knuckles immediately swelled and turned purple and at first we thought maybe she broke a finger. Not good when she types all day at her job. I think it's ok, though. Her swelling went down and after icing the bruises went away, too. It still hurts her, though. That night we went to Aurillio's in Homewood and I ran into my buddy Jeremy, who went to middle school, grade school with me. He was giving me crap cuz he spotted me in a Sox hat! Ha. Good stuff. That night Kell, her bro Kevin and his date and me all went out to Kell's uncle's new bar called Pick-ups. It was a cool little place, but the crowd wasa little rough that night and we didn't stay too long. On Sunday, I put on my Bears knit hat, Bears T-Shirt and over that my Bears Brian Urlacher jersey to watch...you guessed it...Daaaa Bears! They won their 7th in a row and their defense is still ridiculous. Kell and I came home last night and she's at work right now. I have to head to work during her lunch break so she can give me a ride. My car won't start right now and I'm trying to figure out why. It doesn't like the cold weather. That about wraps up my weekend. I'll keep everybody posted on any other developments in the newest Bastian family. Stay tuned... Posted at 12:25 p.m. Happy Thanksgiving! First things first -- I want to wish a Happy Birthday to my big sis Lynn and to my favorite brother-in-law Keith! I didn't get a chance to call either of you guys today and so I'm wishing you a happy b-day here on my blog. Now, second things second -- I just got home from work and Kelly, Barkley and I are about to load up in her car and head back home for Thanksgiving. We're going to Kell's parents house for the holidays. It'll be the first time that I get to see Bark mingle with his Uncle Sammy (Kelly's family's shihtzu). Kell's ma is a great cook, so I can't wait to get some good Thanksgiving food! We might also get to see some of my other family this weekend, too. I have to scoot back up here to St. Joseph on Friday for work, but I have Saturday and Sunday off, so I'll be going down to get Kelly. Depending on how much work I have to do up here, I might be going back down tot he South Side on Friday night or some time on Saturday or maybe Sunday. We'll see what happens. Anyways, I hope everybody has a great Turkey Day and has lots to be thankful for. Talk to you later... Posted at 10:30 p.m. The Bank Teller, This was not intentional, but now there will be two blog entries in a row with alcoholic content! It all started so innocently with a run to the bank to get quarters to do laundry. We had a stack of clothes to get cleaned, but a lack of coinage, so Kelly ran to our bank to get ready for her awesome Friday night with Barkley. She was getting the money out when the bank teller -- Sara -- asked her what her big plans were for the evening while I was at work. "Just doing laundry and hanging out with my dog." So, Sara, who is 22, invited Kell to come out with her and her friend to a bar called Spinackers (spelling?) in St. Joseph. Sara always has done our banking when we go to LaSalle Bank and she is really nice so Kelly said sure! I got done at work at 10:30 and met them out at the bar and we hung out 'till around midnight. It was a happening place -- you couldn't stand anywhere without someone running into you, it was so crowded. I also ran into someone from work, which was funny. Kell says I can't go anywhere without seeing someone I know. It happened all the time in Colorado, Illinois and now even happened in Toronto and St. Joseph! Crazy. Anyways, we had a good time out last night. It was fun to meet some nice people and ge the heck out our of apartment for once. Today I'm just hanging out watching the Ohio State-Michigan game before I have to go to work at 4 p.m. Yesterday I covered high school girls basketball. Tonight I'm just working a shift on the copy desk. Exciting stuff. Stay tuned for more... Posted at 1:59 p.m. Hitting the Streets, My friend Mike Kohon, who I used to work with at the Lansing State Journal and went to MSU with, came into St. Joseph last night. He was in town to cover the Haslett-Lakeshore football game and afterwards came over to my place. We hit the crazy streets of St. Joe to see what a night on the town was like here. First, we went to the downtown area and had a brew at a small bar on the main street. That place wasn't too happening so we wen't a couple blocks down and shot some pool at a different bar. After about an hour there, we headed to a bar called the Sandbar, which is about 100 yards from where I live. It was kareoke night and the place was packed. The best was when this 80-year-old guy got up and sang "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alone with the most serious deadpan expression on his face. It was hilarious. Mike also got up and embaressed the crap out of me by singing "Baby Got Back" solo. The place loved it and some guy bought us shots afterwards! After that, we just headed back to my place, hung out, watched most of Big Lebowski and then some of Terminator 2. Put a couple beers in me and I guess those are my top choices. That was the first time I had had a drink in almost 2 months -- thanks Kohon. Anyways, it was a good time and good to see someone from MSU. That's my first college friend I've hung out with since seeing my friend Chad a few weeks ago and seeing a bunch of my friends when I went to the MSU-UM game in October. Kelly wasn't in town for the night out. She was in Chicago taking Barkley to the vet and seeing her family. It turns out that our dog might have glaucoma! Kell had to go get him human glaucoma medicine. Poor little guy. That's about it for now. Well, a side note: The Michigan State football team stinks and I'm sick of watching. My friends will probably blame me. I've had a history of attending games that wind of turning MSU's season around for the worst. When I mention the Cal game, the Louisiana Tech game, and, now, this year's U-M game, they all get very angry with me. I didn't go to many games while in college, but the ones I did go to cost the Spartans the season! Sorry guys! Stay tuned for more... Posted at 2:22 p.m. Lazy Sunday, Well, Kelly is in Chicago with Barkley and I'm lounging around on the couch just watching football. Right now it's the Chiefs/Raiders or the Jets/Chargers and then later it'll be my Chicago Bears taking on the San Antonio Saints of New Orleans via Baton Rouge. This is actually the FIRST Sunday of this NFL season that I've been able to sit and just chill and watch some games. Every other Sunday up to this point I've had something going on. Everything is going OK up here in St. Joseph. Kell and I mapped out a nice 3-mile jog that runs along Lake Michigan for a bit and then cuts back through the neighborhoods, which are filled with changing colors on the trees. The one nice thing about our new home is how pretty it is up here with the Lake, the little main street "downtown" and whatnot. It's going to be a slow week coming up at the paper. Most of our football teams have been eliminated from the playoffs. I think we only have two left. So, I might be covering something on Friday, but other than that there isn't a whole lot going on. I'll be writing a feature this week and then just spending a lot of time on the copy desk in news. This past week I actually had one paper where I had four bylines -- three on the cover. That was kind of cool. I have been keeping myself busy for the last few days, though. For those of you that know me well, you'll know that one of my most prized possessions is a newspaper scrapbook that I put together after the 1998 baseball season. I was 15 at the time and Sammy Sosa was one of my heroes and he was in the middle of that little home run chase with Mark McGwire. From homers 48 on I cut out every headline, every picture and some stories from the Chicago Sun-Times and when the season was over I put them all together in a cool little book. Well, Kell's grandpa saved all the Chicago Tribunes from the White Sox World Series run for me and Kell's parents saved some of the Sun-Times and what I had was this HUGE stack of papers. I've always saved newspapers from big events -- ever since I was a little kid -- and a Chicago team winning the World Series (even if it's not my beloved Cubbies) is a big event. I was just going to save the few papers from the big games, but Kelly convinced me to reach back to the kid inside and use the papers to compile another newspaper scrapbook. I finished it last night and I'll show you family members next time I'm in town. For the rest of you, I'll post pictures on here when I blog again. I think Kell has the digital camera today. I think that's about all I've got for you today. I'm going to wrap this up and stretch out on the couch, grab a pillow and take in all the football I can. What are the rest of my plans for today? NOTHING. And it'll be everything I thought it could be! Later... Posted at 2:15 p.m. |