Where in the World is Jeff Griggs?

Chinese New Year...

2012-01-24T21:53:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was Chinese New Year. To celebrate, Jeannie and I went to Chinatown with our friend Jason Chin.

We had Dim Sum at his favorite restaurant.

We've been there before with Jason, but it was especially good this time around. Jeannie especially liked the hot dog in the sweet bun.

Afterward, we went to a Chinese bakery and bought treats for when we got home later.

It was a really nice time and we really enjoyed ourselves. So glad Jason invited us to go!
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More snow...

2012-01-22T15:49:00.001-06:00

Last week my parents and brother came up for a visit. They came on Sunday, so they had a chance to come and see my Deep Schwa show. Before the show, we took them to Cozy Noodle. It was the first time my Mom and brother had ever had Thai food. Not many Thai restaurants in Decatur, Illinois.

They liked it...or at least they said they liked it.

Monday morning, I took them to a sure fire winner, Ann Sather.

You may not be aware of this, but Chicago is (among many things) a big brunch town. Brunch restaurants are packed every Saturday and Sunday morning. With Monday being a holiday, I knew it was going to be tough to get in someplace, but we lucked out. The Anne Sather on Broadway is just around the corner from our apartment and we arrived at a perfect time, just before their rush.

We had a great brunch and, of course, really enjoyed their famous cinnamon rolls.

On Friday, we got blanketed with another wave of snow. I knew if I didn't get my run in early, I wasn't going to be able to get it done. I hit the Lakeshore running path just as the snow was starting. Jeannie took a picture of me as I was starting, from the window of our apartment.

The first three and half miles of the run was fine. I was going with the wind and the snow didn't bother me at all. The second three and a half miles wasn't as fun. It was snowing much harder and my face was covered with snow.

The rest of me was in good shape though. My running pants, gloves, hat and jacket kept me super-warm. Jeannie's dad bought me running grips that I attach to my shoes and they work like a charm.

I don't slip or slide and I glide over the snow like a 4 wheel drive.

When I got back home, I took a photo of what the running path looked like when I got finished with my run.

Such a mess.

This is winter in Chicago. I'm not used to it. We've been in Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean and Texas during the winter the past 4 1/2 years.

Changing of the jacket...

2012-01-15T14:19:00.001-06:00

I used to only have one jacket.

Over the past few years I have accumulated several jackets. That occurred usually because we would arrive home from working on a cruise ship and my jacket would be packed away in our storage space.

Since we came home at different times of the year each time, I have multiple jackets for each season. I have a spring jacket, a light spring jacket, a rain jacket, a summer evening jacket, a fall jacket, a heavy fall jacket, a winter jacket and a heavy-duty winter jacket. I also have multiple running jackets. A light running jacket, a cold weather running jacket and an extreme cold weather running jacket.

On Thursday, I had to break out the heavy duty winter jacket and the extreme cold weather running jacket. It was cold and snowy but my jacket and thermal running shirt and tights kept me warm.

After my run, Jeannie and I went to the movies. The heavy duty winter jacket is big and puffy.

It kept me pretty toasty.

Jeannie broke out her heavy coat too, along with her Russian hat. It was a nice wintery walk to the theater. Jeannie tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

In the parking lot, someone built a snowman on top of their friends car.

It was a very nice and pretty and I'm glad I got some use out of my winter clothes, but I'm over it now. I'm ready to pack it away and go back to the summer evening jacket.
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Here comes the snow...

2012-01-11T19:03:00.001-06:00

On Sunday, we met up with several of our old friends from Basic 8 to play Celebrity.Curt Foxworth was in town and it was really great to see him.Yesterday, Jeannie and I went to the grocery store. Jeannie's become a cart lady. On the front of the shopping cart is her roller cart. She bought the roller cart a few months ago so she doesn't hurt her arms and her hands carrying plastic bags home from Jewell. She loves her cart. The problem is that she keeps hitting cracks in the sidewalk and roads and it sends her and her groceries toppling over.Today the temperatures almost hit 60 degrees. It was gorgeous out. To celebrate, Jeannie, Brett and I went to the tennis courts across the street from our apartment.We played for a couple of hours and had a great time. Jeannie won a match against Brett and I and she immediately celebrated by Tebow'ing, which I thought was wonderfully funny.Everywhere we went, there were people out and about enjoying the weather.The forecast for tomorrow is much colder temperatures and six inches of snow. You could tell everyone was trying to squeeze the last bits of outdoor recreation before we have to hibernate indoors for the next 3 months!- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Vidiocy and Podcasts...

2012-01-09T10:01:00.002-06:00

Several years ago, Jason Chin and I came up with an idea for a video contest. We would give each of our friends a randomly selected title and then give them 30 days to complete a movie. We charged everyone $20 so that we could give a cash prize for the best movie. We invited our friend Carrie Barrett to join us as a producer and she admitted that she had recently had a similar idea of having a movie contest for improvisors as well. We publicized Vidiocy and hoped people would want to do it.

We got a huge response! The night of the viewing for the movies, the IO Theater was packed. Most of the movies that were turned in were great. They were funny, smart and in some cases, extremely well crafted.

We had so much fun, we decided to make it a regular event. For awhile, we were doing it 3 times a year.

We haven't done one in 4 years, because I've been on a ship. I knew I wanted us to revive the Vidiocy franchise, but we had to wait to get past my wedding and the holidays.

Now that both of things are over, we're ready to crank of the video cameras. Vidiocy is back!

Online registration is today. People can e-mail us at vidiocyshorts@gmail.com to register. Once you pay the registration fee via PayPal, we'll send you your title. You'll then have 30 days to complete your movie.

If you want to register in person, Jason and I will be sitting in the IO Training Center from 7pm to 9pm Tuesday, January 10th, signing people up.

Here are the rest of the details.

Vidiocy 2012!

Hello! Welcome to our video making contest and festival! Here are some of the Vidiocy rules and regulations:

Your video must only be 6 minutes in length maximum (it can be shorter.)

Videos displaying craftsmanship, originality, and creative use of the suggestion will be selected.

Videos may be submitted on flashdrive only.

Videos will be accepted in AVI & MP4.

Videos are due by midnight on February 10th the latest. Submissions will be accepted at the iO Box Office.

Flashdrives must be in an envelope with the registrants name, email, and title/suggestion on the front.

Finalists will be announced on Feb. 12th.

The Vidiocy Festival, with a showing of the finalists and an audience voting for our Top Three will be at 7pm, on Feb. 16th.

Questions? Let us know at “vidiocyshorts@gmail.com”.

The Vidiocy producers are Jeff Griggs, Anthony LeBlanc and Jason Chin.

iO Theater is at 3541 N. Clark, DO NOT ask them questions. Ask the aforementioned trio.

***

If you haven't listened to our movie podcast lately, you really should. The last two have been especially fun. We did Gone With The Wind, and had a lot of laughs doing it. Megan Hovde Wilkins joined, Brett, Becca and I and we really had fun diving in and discussing that massive movie.

iTunes Link: Gone With The Wind

Website Link: Gone With The Wind

Last week we discussed It's A Wonderful Life. The podcast for that movie was one of the best we've done because Brett and Becca got in a huge fight about the movie. Guillermo Lugo was our special guest for that one.

iTunes Link: It's A Wonderful Life

Website Link: It's A Wonderful Life

2012-01-02T16:03:00.004-06:00

It's been a busy few weeks. We've been all over and celebrated multiple Christmases.

Jeannie put on her Christmas list that she wanted a giant bank. She didn't notice that when she was buying gifts for other people, the giant bank was in her online cart. So, for Christmas, she accidentally bought herself a bank.

She was pretty happy.

Because we were flying out of town, we celebrated Christmas with each other the weekend before Christmas. We had a little soiree for a few friends the night before we opened our gifts. We made lots of treats for everyone.

On Saturday, we opened our presents to each other and then went to the Music Box Theater to watch a Christmas double feature.

We saw White Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life. Lots of fun.

The next day we flew to San Antonio.

It was a sort of a crazy week because Jeannie had a relative pass away while we were there. We did, however, get to spend some quality time with her parents and her brother.

We got some sweet tea in a bucket and some great BBQ.

We also got to get some good Mexican food.

Look at that cheese.

Got back to Chicago and was happy to be home for awhile. The sky looked great from my apartment window.

Did the Armando Diaz show and was pleased to see my old ship cast mate Chris and his girlfriend Lauren.

It was great to see them. We had such a good time with Chris in Hawaii.

On New Years Eve, we went back to the Music Box to watch the Poseidon Adventure. They had a costume contest and lots of fun activities.

They had it timed so that New Years rang in for us in the theater at the same time that it did on the movie screen.

Pretty fun.

2011-12-21T10:16:00.004-06:00

Last week, I had to go down to the Cook County Records office to get an official copy of our marriage license. I got there and looked at it and Jeannie's name had been misspelled. They had spelled her last name with one "L".

I pointed this out to them and the unpleasant woman snapped, "We copied down the information directly from the documents given to us, so there must have been a mistake on her original document. It'll cost you $200 to change it to her correct name."

"What was the document it was copied from," I asked.

She looked over her glasses at her computer screen, "Her passport."

I laughed, "So your saying there's only one "L" on her passport."

"Yep," she snapped.

"Well, if there was a mistake on her passport, we wouldn't be able to use her passport," I explained.

"That's right. You need to get that changed or they're not going to let you out of the country," she said condescendingly. She looked over my head at the next person in line to let me know that she was done with me.

"We use that passport all the time to travel," I said.

She scrunched up her face in disbelief. "When was the last time you used that passport?"

"To go to London, to go to Paris, to go to Tokyo, to go to Mexico, to go to Costa Rica, to go to Guatemala, to go to Honduras, to go to Columbia..."

She stopped me from continuing, "Well, they shouldn't have let you in if her passport was wrong!"

"Don't you think that the error isn't in the passport and that someone in this office most likely made the mistake?"

She snarled her lip at me and over pronounced every syllable as she leaned closer to my face said, "Ex-TREME-ly unlikely."

To avoid paying $200 and to prove them wrong, I had to get Jeannie to bring her passport to the Cook County Records Department. We got back in line and explained the situation to another woman who gave us just as much attitude. She too, disbelieved everything we were saying. We gave her the passport and she pursed her lips together and squinted her eyes, making a face to show us that she absolutely did not believe that we had handed her a real passport. She shook her head with an incredulous look as she turned each page in what she was certain was a fake passport.

She called over her supervisor and discussed it with her. After a few seconds, the supervisor typed on her computer and approved the change and canceled the $200 charge. The woman who was helping us out gave us the documents to sign and expressed to us that they were going to make the change this time, but we needed to be more careful and make sure that all our documents are correct next time we come to the office.

She was very clear that she thought we were totally getting away with some kind of nefarious activity.

After we got the license, we went out to the German Village in front of the Daley Center. Jeannie was excited to walk around and see all the Christmas treats.

She was especially excited to see this item.

It looked like German Spam.

She loved it.

Movie Club Podcast...

2011-12-13T23:58:00.001-06:00

We have several episodes that we've put up. Have you listened to them?

I'll put up the iTunes link and, if you don't have iTunes, the link to the website where you can listen to the episodes directly.

You should listen! Even if you haven't seen the movies, they're fun and funny.

Here they are:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest iTunes link. Website link.

MASH iTunes Link. Website Link

Tootsie iTunes Link. Website Link.

Dr. Zhivago iTunes Link. Website Link.

Have fun. Enjoy!

Lyric Opera...

2011-12-10T01:30:00.001-06:00

For a wedding gift, the husband of Jeannie's opera teacher from college gave us tickets to the Lyric Opera. Jeannie's teacher was a lovely woman named Louisa who was an inspiration and mentor to Jeannie. I met her a few times and she was very kind and sweet to me.

Sadly, Louisa passed away a few years ago. We invited her husband Mr. Bill to the wedding, but he unfortunately wasn't able to make it. He's also a kind, lovely man and he passed along their love for opera to Jeannie and I.

We went to see Mozart's, The Magic Flute.

It was my first time in the Lyric Opera. It's really spectacular.

It was a wonderful production and a wonderful time. Thank you to Mr. Bill and Jeannie's dear friend Louisa.

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Toronto...

2011-12-08T12:18:00.001-06:00

This past weekend, Brett, Jeannie and I went to Toronto to perform as Aphasia for Kevin Patrick Robbins' theater company, The Impatient Theater.

We did a couple shows and taught some workshops and had a blast. It was a lot of fun.

I took remarkably few photos. Here are the ones I have.

This was my breakfast, Saturday morning.

It's croissant French toast. One of the best breakfast items I've ever tasted.

These are a tiny pair of Canadian mittens that someone left behind.

We did our normal Aphasia show and also a "duo show" where we were paired up with an improvisor from Toronto.

My partner was Ashley Botting. She was fantastic and the two of us had a phenomenal show.

The only other photos I took were of our favorite crazy chip flavors that they have in Canada.

All Dressed are always one of our favorites. Don't know what it means, but they are very popular.

These aren't just pickle chips, they're intense pickle chips!

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Field Museum...

2011-12-02T20:16:00.001-06:00

Jeannie and I went to the Field Museum of Natural Arts and History on Tuesday.

Jeannie had never been there and we had a free day, so we decided to go.

As you can see, Jeannie was afraid of getting cold so she was bundled up.

We went on a day that had discounted admission so we saw everything.

Jeannie was leery of the signs they had announcing that exhibits had missing items.

They were handwritten on loose leaf paper.

She was also disappointed to see that a lot of the interactive displays weren't working.

I've been missing Hawaii A LOT lately. We went into the South Pacific exhibit and were startled to see this display in the exhibit.

Look closely and you'll see it's a postcard from Hawaii sent by J. D. Griggs. My initials!

Something's telling me we need to go back to Hawaii to visit our friends.

All the new exhibits at the museum were really nice. The old ones need to be updated.

All in all, it was a really fun time.

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Decorations...

2011-11-29T11:32:00.001-06:00

It's been a busy few weeks.

A couple of weekends ago, my sister Melissa and her boyfriend came to visit.

They were excited to ride on the CTA.

We were supposed to meet them downtown to watch the tree lighting parade, but the swarms of people blocked them from getting to us. We stayed and watched it on our own.

You can see the lady in front of me was taking the same photo.

Yesterday we put up our tree.

It's the first tree we've had in 4 years. One of the fun things we've been able to do is to collect ornaments from all the places we've visited.

It's a very international tree!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Katniss?...

2011-11-15T18:50:00.001-06:00

Jeannie's dream of becoming Katniss, from the Hunger Games, took another step yesterday.

Groupon was offering a deal at a local Archery School, so Brett and I bought sessions and got one for Jeannie as well.

Jeannie was really excited and nervous.

A few months ago, she made a list of things she wanted to do (not a bucket list, mind you, but a Lady's List of Future Accomplishments). On the list was "Shoot a Bow and Arrow". She got the idea after we watched an episode of the Australian version of The Amazing Race. After she read the Hunger Games trilogy, she was even more determined to do it.

We had a really good time.

We even got to shoot balloons off the target.

Jeannie was the first one of us to hit a bulls-eye and she hit it frequently.

Brett was not happy with this older lady.

She always shot more arrows than everyone and took forever to shoot each one. Brett was not pleased.

It was a lot of fun and after it was over, we each said we want to come back and do it again.

Next time we do it, we'll do it in honor of District 12!

My gift to Jeannie...

2011-11-13T19:22:00.001-06:00

Did you know that Brides and Grooms are supposed to buy gifts for each other? Well, they are.

I'm not sure who decided that for everyone. In the midst of all the stress of the event, you also have to find a gift for someone that has to be good enough to be remembered for the rest of your life.

Well, I was lucky. I knew there was something that Jeannie had wanted, but didn't realize that I knew she wanted it. So, it was something that was a complete surprise to her.

I bought her a bike.

Not just any bike though.

An old timey bike. A quirky bike that you might see Audrey Hepburn or Zooey Deschannel riding on around a movie set.

The gift totally caught her off guard and she really liked it.

Last night was the first time I had some free time since the wedding to put it together. So, while Jeannie was at Anne's apartment having dinner, I put it together.

I even got her one with a basket.

This afternoon, before the Bears game, we went across the street to the lakefront and she took it for a spin.

For my gift, Jeannie got me a really awesome, historic Chicago portrait. It's very, very cool.

Thankfully, the exchange of wedding gifts was a huge success!

Podcast...

2011-11-09T08:02:00.000-06:00

We have a couple new episodes available from our movie podcast. Have you listened to them yet?

The first one's for the movie Unforgiven.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-thursday-evening-movie/id338353058?i=103522874

The second one is for Annie Hall.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/thursday-evening-movie-club/id338353058?i=104431423

Give a listen. Then, if you can, give us a rating or a review on iTunes.

If you want to send us an e-mail with comments or suggestions of movies, you can e-mail us at thursdayeveningmovieclub@gmail.com.

Sick...

2011-11-08T15:47:00.001-06:00

Jeannie and I have been sick for the past week. She actually got sick on the flight back from London. I was able to fight it off until Friday.

Saturday morning was the Hot Chocolate 15K. Against our better judgement, we went downtown to run the race through our sickness.

Do we look sick?

Jeannie was at least feeling good enough to smile. I was not.

Usually, if I'm sick, a run kind of helps me feel a little better.

This one kind of did. We finished in an hour and thirty minutes. If we were felling better, we would have shaved 5 minutes off of that.

After the race, they had hot chocolate ABD chocolate fondue.

It was pretty good.

Got home and felt worse. Much worse. Didn't leave the couch until I had to go to work Monday morning.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wedding photos...

2011-11-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

We're still getting more photos, but this is one of the fun ones that Oscar at S1 photography has done for us.

One of the other fun things we did for the wedding was our wedding program.

Chicago...

2011-11-02T08:07:00.000-05:00

We're back in Chicago.

Here are some final thoughts and photos from the trip...

Loved, loved, loved London. Incredible city. So much to see and do. It's one of those places where I could easily see myself living. It is expensive though.

I have to say, every time I go anywhere, people always say, "It's so expensive there."

I live in Chicago, which is a pretty expensive place to live. So, the price of things never seems as bad. New York, Tokyo, LA, San Francisco, all seemed financially comparable to Chicago. Now, I didn't try to rent an apartment in any of those places, but the price of things all seemed similar to what I'm used to where I live. They definitely where a little pricier than Chicago. But, only by a little.

London, not so much. London was expensive. Paris was worse. The exchange rate for the Pound was $1.67 GBP for every US $1.00 dollar. The Euro was better, but the prices in France were jacked up. A 16 ounce diet coke was $6 Euro's! The whole country of France is selling all their items at movie theater and MLB ballpark prices.

***
Here's a photo of a typical London girl.

Notice the patterned tights. Every girl in London wore patterned tights.

Notice too that she was wearing the patterned tights under shorts. Jeannie pointed that out to me. It's a huge trend in Europe now. Even women going to work in business offices were wearing shorts and patterned tights.

The last thing I'll point out about this girl is the cigarette. Ever wonder how the tobacco companies are still in business? I hardly know anyone or see anyone who smokes anymore. Well, Londoners and other Europeans have taken upon themselves to keep the tobacco companies profitable. It seems like every person in London smokes. They can't smoke indoors anymore, so the streets and sidewalks are packed with smokers.

That girl above was not allowed to smoke while standing in line. Notice how she generously stepped 3 steps away from the line to puff on her cigarette.

***
One final thought for the day, before I head to work.

We traveled everywhere on the Tube train station. We bought Oyster Travelcards as soon as we got into England. It was one of the best things we purchased. We were able to travel all over the place, worry free with that card. It was invaluable. That was gifted to us by our dear friend Mel Evans. Mel, if you read this blog, please know, I have a special gift for you that you're going to want to collect soon.

Baker Street and Abbey Road..

2011-10-30T18:18:00.001-05:00

Today was supposed to be a relaxing, non-eventful day. We had crossed most of the things off our list and were going to spend most of the day in our fabulous hotel.

Got up early and and went for a run.

Ran by all the major sites and even found some new ones that I hadn't seen yet. It was very cool to run around and see so many historical sites. I ran on pavement, I ran on grass, I ran on gravel, I ran on cobblestone streets, I ran in front of places, I ran by castles, I ran along narrow streets that normal cars couldn't drive down and across some of the most famous bridges in the world. It was the most cultured 6 miles I've ever run.

After getting back to the hotel and taking a shower, I decided there were 2 more things that I wanted to see. I told Jeannie she could stay and relax, but she elected to go with me. She would regret that later in the day.

The first place we went to was easy to find. It was 221b Baker Street.

The home to Sherlock Holmes.

The Tube station had all kinds of Holmes decorations in it.

It was fun to see them pick up the theme and run with it.

There were also all kinds of signs pointing the way.

We went into the store and it was very cool.

Afterward, we went and had a nice English lunch. Jeannie got the Englishman's Breakfast. An egg, roasted tomato, mushrooms sausage, back bacon, toast, beans and a hashbrown.

We then set out to find Abbey Road. Abbey Road is, of course, home to Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles recorded their albums and the site of one of their most famous album covers.

I looked it up ahead of time and everyone said it was tricky to find. We walked down Circus Road, but couldn't find the Abbey Crossroad anywhere.

I looked on my map, but couldn't figure out why I couldn't find it. With no gps or internet, we were really having a tough time. A woman came up and asked us what we were looking for and to our relief, gave us directions.

Unfortunately, she sent us in the complete wrong direction.

Finally, I found a wi-fi signal and google maps showed me where to go.

However, it was also wrong.

Frustrated, we trudged along. We had found the Abbey Road, we just couldn't find the studio or the crosswalk. Making it worse was the fact that London went into daylights savings time last night. By 5pm, it was completely dark.

Finally, after searching for it for 90 minutes we found it.

Look at the photo below. It kind of looks like the ghost of George Harrison is about to pass by me.

We took the obligatory crossing the crosswalk photos and headed back to the tube so we could finally get back to our hotel.

As we walked back I saw what the problem had been. In a couple different spots, Abbey Road becomes Grove End Road and/or West End Lane and/or Quex Road.

What was supposed to have been a quick trip to see 2 fun sites turned into an all day affair.

Glad we did it though.

Before going to the hotel we stopped to get some snacks. I love British candy bars. They have great names.

Sometimes they just want to keep it simple.

It's a snack!

Sometimes your candy bar is so fun, it's an all out picnic.

This one probably tastes like whisky, dusty shoes and urine.

Love it.

Tomorrow, we fly back to Chicago. We'll be home late tomorrow night.

It's been an awesome trip.

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2011-10-29T19:22:00.005-05:00

We went to Paris on Saturday. It was gifted to us by Becca Lulinski, Sara and Nick Hale, Jaclyn DiLauro, Jen Shepherd and alarrance Fingerhut, Melissa Griggs, Jeni Yantis and Craig and Leigh Uhlir.

We had to be up early for our trip. We woke up at 4:45am so that the shuttle could take us to the St. Pancreas Station to catch the Eurostar.

We were a part of a tour and our tourguide was a french girl named Charlotte.

Imagine the most stereotypical French accent and voice that you can think of. That's how Charlotte spoke. Jeannie was obsessed.

The train from London to Paris took just under 2 hours and 14 minutes. We arrived at the Gar du Nord station and was immediately driven on a tour of Paris.

After the bus tour, we took a boat tour down the River Seine.

It was really fantastic. Look, there's Notre Dame.

After the river tour, Charlotte whisked us past the extremely long lines waiting to get into the Eiffel Tour and immediately took us to the first observation level.

I really don't like going on any type of sightseeing trips with a tourgroup, but this is one of those times when a tourgroup and tourguide just can't be beat. We were able to go to the front of every line at every place we went.

Charlotte swept us into the restaurant on the 1st observation level and we sat down and had a nice lunch on the Eiffel Tower. We even had a window seat all to ourselves.

You just can't beat that.

After lunch we walked the stairs up to the second level. It was much higher and had some spectacular views of Paris.

We spent about 3 hours eating, walking around and playing on the Tower.

We spent another hour on the ground underneath the Tower as well.

From there we went to the Louvre.

We had the option of going in the museum or walking around on our for a couple of hours. We took the time to go out on our own to explore.

I know it sounds crazy that we didn't go into the Louvre, but we only had 2 hours and it seemed crazy to try to see everything in that gigantic museum in such a short amount of time.

With our free time, we walked around and tried to experience part of the city.

We stopped at one of the cafe's and sat down for some coffee and dessert.

Jeannie had an assortment of macaroons and I had crepes.

Jeannie felt very cosmopolitan.

After our sit down at the cafe, we stopped in at a couple of shops before heading back to meet up with our group. We then took the short train ride back to London. Here's the thing about Jeannie, we've been getting up early and running around so much that anytime Jeannie sits down for longer than 5 minutes, she nods off. She nodded off a couple times on the bus and the train.

It was an exciting, fabulous day. It was surreal eating lunch on the Eiffel Tower.

I don't know that I ever thought I would see it in person, let alone spend 3 hours walking around and eating and having fun on it.

The whole day seems pretty unbelievable.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

2011-10-29T18:20:00.001-05:00

We went to Westminster Abbey on Friday.

It was beautiful and fascinating. We had only planned on staying there for 90 minutes, but ended up staying there for almost 3 hours.

After the Abbey, we headed over to the palace. Along the way, Jeannie mailed postcards...

...and, we walked past the west entrance to the Horse guard.

We got to Buckingham Palace and stared at it for awhile.

That's really pretty much all it's good for. Staring and taking photographs. We did both.

After the palace, we had lunch where Jeannie had a proper Shepherd's Pie.

After lunch we went to the Tower of London.

Tower was the previous palace, castle and garrison for many previous kings and queens.

It was all very intriguing and interesting.

We waited in line and saw the crown jewels. They were pretty phenomenal.

After visiting the Tower, we walked across the Tower Bridge.

Saturday, Paris.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Harrods...

2011-10-27T18:14:00.001-05:00

We were very excited for today. We didn't have to get up too early so we slept in a bit. We should have probably got up a little earlier because we took too long to get ready and ended up having to take a taxi to get to where our tour bus was picking us up. That's okay though, because Jeannie really wanted to at least take one trip in one of the ole timey black cabs.

Look how excited she is.

The taxi dropped us off and we eagerly hopped onto our tour coach. It was the coolest tour bus you could ever find!

The tour was gifted to us by Anne Kuzmanich, Jeni Yantis and Amy Verdon. When Amy sent her gift, she sent the message that we should get there early so we could sit on top. Well, we did it. In fact, we were the first ones there.

Our tour started and we had the best tour guide you'll ever find in London. His name was Allen and he was downright dapper.

We thought it was just going to be a 2 hour tour, but it ended up lasting 4 hours. It also included a boat ride.

It was incredible.

We drove all over town and saw all kinds of things that we haven't seen yet.

One of the things that Jeannie loved the most was the round-about where Chevy Chase got stuck in in National Lampoon's European Vacation.

"Look Kids, there's Big Ben!"

The tour took us to to see the changing of the Horse Guards.

It was very cool.

After the tour was over, Allen escorted us up to the Georgian Room at Harrods.

It was there that we had High Tea at Harrods, which was gifted to us by Janie and Tom Cahill.

It was Jeannie's dream come true.

The tea sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, and mini desserts were all fantastic.

The tea was really great too. Jeannie insists that the tea tastes so much better here than it does back home.

After tea we walked around and looked at everything in the store. It's a very beautiful place.

They even have a dog spa.

Everywhere we go, we notice that the entire city is getting ready for Christmas. There are signs everywhere telling people to order their Christmas menu's. Harrod's is already Christmas crazy as well. There are Christmas decorations everywhere.

We haven't even finished Halloween yet.

After Harrod's, we went back to our neighborhood in Westminster and got our tickets for the London Eye. The London Eye was gifted to us by Meagan and Tom Flanigan.

The first thing we did was to experience the London Eye 4D Experience. You can't see it here, but it's snowing on us.

We came at a good time and were able to walk right on to the Eye. On Tuesday, Wednesday and earlier in the day on Thursday, the wait to get onto the eye was 2 and 3 hours long.

Jeannie was a little nervous about the trip, but it was actually really great.

Very peaceful and relaxing.

Such a great day. The Eye was awesome.

The tour was fantastic.

And, the High Tea was phenomenal.

Tomorrow, we see Westminster Abbey and the Palace!

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Stone Henge and Bath...

2011-10-27T05:09:00.001-05:00

We woke up early on Wednesday to take a tour to Stonehenge. It was gifted to us by Victoria Flores, who is a close family friend of the Cahills.

I've always wanted to see Stonehenge. Always.

We got there and I was very surprised. I heard it was in the middle of a field and by the side of the road, but I was shocked when we pulled up next to it. It's one of the seven wonders of the world and it was just sitting there off a two lane road, next to a field of sheep.

It really was impressive.

Some of the pictures look far away, but we were really very close.

So, so , so cool. Loved it! Thanks Victoria and Henry!

After that we went to Bath. I wasn't terribly excited about going to Bath. We were only going because it was a part of the tour. Boy, did my mind change. Bath is an astonishing city. All the buildings are built or covered with a beautiful white rock that makes it look like a glistening white city.

It's also home to the ancient Roman baths. When the Romans occupied England, they found a natural hot spring in Bath and built a huge communal bath there. The bath's were discovered a few hundred years later and now people flock to see them.

Down the road from the Roman bath's is a contemporary spa and thermal bath. They use the same hot spring that the Romans use. I screwed up in Tokyo when Jeannie wanted to go to the spa, so I made sure we went to this one.

We couldn't take photos inside, but they had 2 fantastic baths that were supposed to have the same minerals and healing powers that rejuvenated the Romans. They had an amazing open air bath on the roof of the building that overlooked the rest of the city. It was amazing.

After that, we walked around and then went to Sally Lunn's Buns.

We had a great lunch.

That's the bun with strawberry's and clotted cream with a cup of cream tea. That photo does not do it justice. That plate is huge and the bun is massive. It was excellent.

We took the bus back and the tour dropped us off the Victoria neighborhood of the city. We walked around for awhile and then had dinner.

I continued my string of having pizza in every country I've visited. It was...okay. The pepperoni was actually just a mildly spicy sausage.

We then took the Tube to Tower Hill to see the Tower of London. We went there to see the Ceremony of the Keys.

It's a special ceremony where they lock down the queen's jewels. They only allow 30 people in to see the ceremony so I wrote to get the tickets way back in May while Jeannie and I were still in Hawaii.

The ceremony was very elaborate and British.

We also had a special guest for the ceremony. As the ceremony began, the Beefeater who was running the ceremony informed us that the outgoing head of the British military was coming to receive the final salute. The English folk were all a twitter. We were told it would be similar to if Petraus or Rumsfeld had suddenly appeared to take part in leading everyone in saying the pledge of allegiance at your condo board meeting. It was quite exciting.

When the ceremony was over, we looked at Tower Bridge and then headed back to the hotel. On the Tube ride back, someone was a little tuckered out.

When we got off the Tube we stopped to take more photos of Big Ben...

...and the Eye.

We can't get enough of these two places.

Tomorrow, it's High Tea at Herrod's
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London...

2011-10-26T08:15:00.001-05:00

Our first day in London was a long one. We arrived here at 5:00 in the morning. We bought out Oyster Travelcard and took the Tube to our hotel.

We stepped out of the tube, walked up the steps and this is what we saw.

We're staying across the bridge from Big Ben and Parliament at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel. Here's what we see from the windows of our hotel.

It's very cool to look out at it right before we go to bed and to see it right as we wake up.

Since we arrived so early, I thought there was no way they were going to have a room ready for us, but I was wrong. Our suite was ready and it had some nice honeymoon treats waiting for us inside.

London is 6 hours ahead of Chicago, so we arrived at would have been midnight back home. In other words, bedtime.

We took a short nap and headed out to explore.

Our hotel is also next to the London Eye. The lines were too long on Tuesday so we continued walking down the river path.

We saw a tiny fire truck, which made Jeannie happy.

We also saw Darth Vadar getting an ice cream cone.

Jeannie's director from college, Richard Warner gifted us a tour of Shakespeare's Globe Theater so we stopped in to take the tour.

It was very cool.

After the tour we crossed the footbridge over the Thames to get to the North side.

We went to see St. Paul's Cathedral...

...but, we couldn't get in. It was closed.

The protests from Occupy Wall Street had spread across the pond.

Protesters have camped out in front of the church and have closed it down.

We wandered around for the rest of the afternoon and visited as many things as we could.

I realized early on that Jeannie and I are looking for separate things on this trip. I'm looking for historical sites and architecture.

She's looking for anything that reminds her of Mary Poppins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

By early evening, we arrived at Trafalgar Square.

There was a show going on when we arrived. Acrobats from Vienna were there and putting on a show.

It was cool to see.

From there we went to Piccadilly Circus and did some shopping.

By 8pm, we were very hungry and extremely sleepy. We stopped at a nice restaurant and had a very English meal.

After dinner, we took the Tube back to our hotel. I could barely keep my eyes open. We'd been awake for almost 36 hours and had only had an hour nap. Add on to that that we'd walked almost ten miles through the streets and you could imagine that we were both very tired.

Tomorrow, Stone Henge.
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Promontory Point...

2011-10-23T19:22:00.002-05:00

So, Jeannie and I got married yesterday.

We have a lot of talented friends and family who came to the wedding. They ate, they sang, they took photos. Thanks to Tim Lyons, Kevin Patrick Robbins, Jason Chin and Anne Kumanich, I have photos that I can show you. The professional ones won't be ready for a couple of months, but these are great.

We got married at Promontory Point.

The weather was perfect.

The ceremony took place on the back patio.

The Groomsmen, Brett, Jason and Mike.

The Bridesmaids, Sara, Anne and Becca.

My dad officiated the wedding.

Our flower girl was Mike's Daughter Grace.

She was really sweet and did an awesome job.

We made programs that were in the same format as a playbill

We also had water bottles with our faces on them. Jeannie wrote a very funny description on the label informing people that we don't really like drinking water. It was funny.

After the ceremony, we had Mariachi's play while guests enjoyed Hot Cider, Flavored coffees and Hot Chocolate. Jeannie's dad sang with the Mariachi's, which was great.

We hired Rance to make some pumpkins for us. They turned out great.

In the middle of the Social hour, a group of cowboys pulled up and we took our pictures with them.

So random.

While all of that was going on, Kristin, our wedding planner was busy getting the room ready.

Dinner was served and we had a great meal from Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse. After dinner was Molly's Cupcakes. We bought as many different varieties as we could and got enough for everyone to have 2.

After that was Live Band Karaoke.

Jeannie and I sang Wilco's "You and I" and Decemberist's "Rox in the Box". Then we turned it over to everyone else. Jeannie's dad did a phenomenal rendition of "Sweet Home Chicago" where he changed all the words to fit our special day.

Anthony, KPR, Kennedy, Bud, Adal and Brett all brought the house down with their songs. I was especially happy to see Jason sing. He did great at singing a Beatles song. Jeannie's cousin Angela did a great song. I was especially proud to see my brother Jacob and sister Melissa get up to sing a song. They were awesome.

Lots of friends were there and it was nice to see them and to have them there.

We set up a fire pit by the field house so everyone could roast marshmallows and cook s'mores.

At the end of the night, Amy Verdon closed the evening by singing "I will Survive". She did so good she had everyone up on their feet. We then went outside and did our exit through sparklers.

It was a great day.

Wait...that doesn't do it justice. It was a stupendous day.

Ah, let me try again. It was the greatest day of my life.

So fun.

Thanks KPR, Jason and Anne for letting me steal your photos.

Bachelor Party...

2011-10-21T01:05:00.001-05:00

If you know me, you know I'm not I'm not a wild guy.

That's why my bachelor party was at Medieval Times.

Brett, Mike, Adal, Jason, Bud, Jacob and I had a real fun time.

We're all hoarse from yelling and laughing all night long. Everyone was yelling such funny stuff.

Jason even bought me a proclamation that was read out in the middle of the tournament.

Personally, I bought a picture of us with the King.

Look at all of us dummies.

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Decatur...

2011-10-17T23:08:00.001-05:00

We're on the last stretch before the wedding. The last 2 weeks have been pretty chaotic. On Thursday alone I received 47 e-mails about the wedding.

On Friday, Jeannie and I drove down to Decatur to do some last minute planning. We rented a car from Ohare because it's always cheaper to get a rental car from an airport. Well, that was a huge mistake. Traffic was so bad that it took us an hour to get to Ohare. Then, it took us two hours just to get to Bolingbrook.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's crazy! It should only take 30 to 40 minutes to get to Bolingbrook from downtown. A normal 3 hour trip to Decatur took 6 1/2 hours

Very frustrating, We did have a good trip though. Here's Jeannie and my brother Jacob.

And, Jeannie and my mom.

On Sunday, I met up with some friends at Potbelly's.

Look at that group of people. Something's coming down the pipe. More on that later.

After the meeting, I went to get a haircut. Jason went with me and got a haircut as well. While I was getting my haircut, Jason paid for both of ours. What an upstanding Groomsman!
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Fall in Chicago...

2011-10-09T18:23:00.001-05:00

The past few days have been amazingly beautiful here in Chicago. The autumn weather has been stunning. Here's the view from my window.

It's been nice to go to work in short sleeves.

That's right, I said work. Brett and I have been temping at an office downtown.

This morning I woke up and went downstairs to watch the marathon runners. They ran right by our building. We were a little past the 7 mile marker so I went down at 8am and was able to the eventual winners race by.

I stayed for about 90 minutes and cheered for all the runners. I wanted to do a 9 mile run of my own so I went back up to my apartment to change into my running gear. From my west facing window I could hear the cheers for the runners as they headed to their turn onto Broadway.

So impressive. So inspiring.
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New Podcast...

2011-10-06T22:39:00.000-05:00

Aphasia's back in the podcasting business. We actually have 2 new ones.

We have our regular podcast, Aphasia Presents Something... ,

....and, our new podcast where we invite friends over to a dinner party to discuss movies that were on the 2007 AFI list of the 100 Greatest Movies Ever Made. Listen to this podcast on iTunes by going here. Or, you can stream it by going here. This week we talk about Casablanca. Even if you've never seen the movie, I think you'll find the discussion entertaining.

Give both of them a listen and let me know what you think!

Save Ferris...

2011-10-02T01:26:00.001-05:00

I fulfilled a lifelong dream tonight. I walked onto the field at Wrigley Field.

Now, I've been on Soldier Field before, during the middle of a game nonetheless. But, I've never touched the blessed grass in Wrigley.

I went tonight as a part of another momentous occasion, the 25th birthday of Ferris Bueller's day off. It was a big event put on by Groupon.

Ferris came into theaters in 1986. At that time, I'd never been to Chicago. That movie was my introduction to the city. 25 years later, my love for that movie and my love for Chicago and the Cubs collided.

I got there early and was able to walk all around the outfield.

I touched the Ivey.

I sat in the bullpen.

I leaned over the wall to see if I could snare the ball from Bartman.

I even laid in the grass in left field where Billy Williams, Gary Matthews and other Cubs greats played. I also hovered around Rhyno's second base and Starlin's shortstop spot.

It was awesome.

Then, the movie started.

There were three screens on the field.

I found a great spot in shallow left and enjoyed the film.

Even saw an old friend on the screen.

The crowd was great. They cheered, laughed and even danced in all the right places. At the point in the movie where Ferris catches a foul ball down the leftfield line, a spotlight came on to show 3 actors in the stand portraying the characters from the movie.

It was pretty clever.

Even though it was a little chilly, I stayed for the whole movie. It's one of my absolute favorite films and it was so amazing watching it from the outfield grass. Such an amazingly cool night.

Thanks Cubs! Thanks Groupon!
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Wrigley...

2011-09-28T17:42:00.001-05:00

Brett and I went to the game of the season at Wrigley last week.

We already had seats, but we got an upgrade when Scott Goldstein let us sit in seats he wasn't using.

We were in the 6th row.

Monday, Jeannie and I went to the movies. Surprisingly, the theater downtown is the easiest and closest theater for us to go to. I used to hate going to that theater because it was so inconvenient to get to. Now, all I have to do is jump on the 145 or the 146 and we're there in 15 minutes.

After the movie, we wanted to get something to eat. Since we were down on Illinois Avenue, Jeannie begged to eat at the Billygoat Tavern. I reluctantly agreed because I knew she wanted to try it. She'd never eaten there before.

I don't really like the Billygoat, but they're one of those places every Chicagoan should try at least once.

Jeannie looks really pleased in this photo.

Notice, there's been no bites taken of the burger.

Two bites later, she couldn't stop apologizing for making us eat there. I laughed and kept eating my burger. Jeannie ate one more bite and then threw the rest of it away. She apologized the entire bus ride home.

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Orange...

2011-09-22T11:32:00.001-05:00

I have an orange Columbia jacket. It's an outdoor-sey coat that I bought in Bar Harbor. Water resistant, but not heavy, it's the perfect fall jacket.

I also like that it's orange. It's a featured color for the Illini and the Bears, but that's not why I got it. I got it because to me, orange is a nice fall color...and it makes me happy to see it.

However, it's such a dramatic color that sometimes it sticks out. Especially when a couple wearing identical orange colored sweatsuits get on the bus and sit right next to you.

This picture doesn't do justice to how ridiculous we looked. I was trying to be discreet in taking the photo so you see a lot of my blue shirt.

The three of us were the topic of conversation for everyone as they tried to figure out if there was some sort of pumpkin festival going on or if the three of us were handing out samples of Fanta Orange Soda.

Embarrassing.

****

After my bus ride I went to the DMV at the Thompson Center to update my driver's license.

Upon arriving there I witnessed a rehearsal for some sort of patriotic ceremony that was happening at noon.

It was very stirring.

However, immediately after these flag carriers walked past me they stepped onto the escalator going to the main floor of the building. They set the bottoms of their flag poles on the steps of the escalator so the flags were perfectly upright.

Unfortunately, the flag poles were too tall and every flag topper jammed itself into the lip of the ceiling as the escalator climbed upward.

That escalator is a powerful piece of machinery. It was not stopping or slowing down for anyone or anything.

Loud pops echoed through the cavernous Thompson Center as flag poles snapped and splintered all over the escalator and the floor beneath. Bewildered teenagers looked around, stunned as they held on to the remnants of what used to be their flag poles. Their student leaders and teacher supervisors chased after them yelling, "There are flags on the ground! There are flags on the ground!"

As much as I tried, I could not keep from laughing. The looks on the faces of 30 teenagers holding splintered flag poles was too much.

When I got out of the DMV the flags were all gone and the escalator was shut down to repair the damage. The teenagers stood in a huddled mass, knowing they're in trouble, wondering why someone hadn't measured the flag poles to see if they would fit up the escalator.

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Deep Schwa...

2011-09-21T21:19:00.001-05:00

On Sunday night, Deep Schwa celebrated their 15 year anniversary. I've been on the team for 13 1/2 of those years. Here are some of our old photos...

We had a big shindig at IO and several of our old members came back for the show.

Jeannie bought us a Deep Schwa cake.

Craig and his daughters made cupcakes.

It was a good time and we had a really fun show.

We might just have to do it every year.
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2011-09-16T16:05:00.006-05:00

Jeannie and I have been training to run the half marathon here in Chicago.

We signed up for it in July while we were still working in Hawaii. At that point, the longest distance we'd ever run was 5 miles. We needed to add on another 7 miles to get to the half marathon length.

We trained in Hawaii by running 4 or 5 times a week. Once a week in Maui we made our trek from one side of the island to the other.

It was tough. That run from shore to shore was 8.5 miles wide. The first time we did it in the blazing heat, it almost killed us. It was hot and sunny and we were wiped out. We did it 3 more times and got much better at it.

While I was in Bar Harbor, Jeannie was in Texas. We had to run on our own. I initially started running through the streets, but Maine is very, very hilly and the hills were too tough. Thankfully, Jen and Larrance told me about the track that was a few blocks from their house.

I loved that track. I really enjoyed running on it and it helped me tack on the extra miles that I needed to get up to the half marathon.

One of the treats in walking to the track was the fact that I got to walk past this very "Maine-ish" strip mall.

I loved passing by everyday to see what they had out on their sales table.

Back in Chicago, we're close enough to the lake in our new apartment that we could run out there together. It's very cool and nice.

Last week we ran from the apartment to the 1/2 marathon expo at Navy Pier.

It was fun to walk around and taste all the samples and enjoy all the booths.

This past Sunday was the Chicago Half Marathon. We got up at 4am and got to the starting line at Jackson park by 5:30am.

An hour and a half later, we were off.

It was a great run. We felt really good and didn't have to stop a single time. We finished the 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 10 minutes.

We were very happy with that time and happy with the whole race.

We even got medals.

After the race they gave out lots of free food and drinks. You would think that pizza would be the last thing you'd want to eat at 9am after running 13.1 miles, but it really hit the spot.

So glad we did it. So proud we finished and had a nice race.

All moved in...

2011-09-13T12:08:00.001-05:00

Moved in. Finally.

It took awhile to get everything unpacked and organized. Plus, the previous tenant left things in pretty bad shape, so it took a lot of time to fix up the abuse she left behind.

Here's some interesting tidbits I discovered during the move in...

There are lots of random chords that seem to attach to nothing.

We lots of old phones stored away. They look so small and dumb.

While unpacking, you can catch up on reading articles about improvisors from the spring of 2008.

Or, see who was performing at the 2008 CIF. Sports Action Team did a live stage show at the Lakeshore Theater that year and I was in it. It was a good show!

This is the hose and plug that connects the dishwasher to the sink. The previous tenant didn't have the adapter for it so for the entire five years she lived here she never used the dishwasher. Crazy.

Tracking down the sink adapter was a chore. I went to every Hone Depot, Lowe's and local hardware store I could find. I even went out to the suburbs and still couldn't find an adapter to work. Finally, I was able to get in touch with a Maytag distributor who informed me that the only way to get the adapter was through Maytag. Ugh. This small piece of metal that would cost $5 at a hardware store, cost $30 from Maytag.

Issue resolved, right? Nope. The threads on the sink faucet were stripped. I had to buy a brand new faucet and install it.

Such a headache. But now, it's done. And, I finally have clean dishes.

The former tenant also had 2 bikes. Which means...

There are rubber marks on all the walls. After doing a little online investigating, I found out there are quite a few products that were invited in the past 3 1/2 years while I've been on cruise ships. The coolest one is this...

Mr Clean's Magic Eraser completely cleaned the walls and the floors.

It was amazing! Jeannie really thinks they put magic inside the boxes.

The strangest thing in the apartment was this...

Chinese hair growth formula.

Might come handy some day.

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Back in Chicago...

2011-09-08T00:14:00.001-05:00

It's been whirlwind.

Did my final shows at Improvacadia Saturday night. Here's Jen texting/playing a game backstage in between shows.

Got home around 1am. Packed and went to bed at 2:30am. Woke up at 5:30 to drive to the bus station at Bangor. Brett was gracious enough to take me to the train station and drive all the back to Ellsworth by himself.

The bus left at 7am. I switched buses at 9:30am in Portland, Maine. Then, we pulled into the Boston Logan airport at 11:25.

At 1:25 I flew to Chicago. The flight got in at Midway ahead of time and landed at 2:55. My luggage got to the carousel at 3:20 I then raced to the rental car company and picked up my car and bolted to my storage unit. I got there at 3:58, 2 minted before they closed. Phew.

I needed to get in there before they closed so I could grab some blankets and pillows and a tv. The building I'm moving into doesn't allow people to move in on Sundays or holidays so I was going to be stuck in an empty apartment for two days. I needed some pillows and blankets since I was going to be sleeping on the floor.

I got into the apartment, changed clothes and then went to IO to do my Deep Schwa show. After the show I grabbed a pizza from D'Agostino's and walked home to my new apartment.

Here was the view from the new place when I arrived.

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Blue Hill Fair...

2011-09-06T07:38:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, Brett Liz and I went to the Blue Hill Fair.

The fair is famous because it's the fair where Charlotte's Web and Babe took place.

Here's where Charlotte would have spun her web...

And here's the sheepdog competition where Babe would have herded the sheep...

We also saw the Oxen Pull competition...

And, the frisbee dog show...

There were lots of other fun things to see and eat.

Like deep fried Oreo's.

Brett did not eat any of the Oreo's. In fact, he was mad that I made him hold them for the picture.

They also had bacon wrapped hot dogs.

And, bologna burgers.

I did not have the bologna burger. Just sounded too gross to even try.

Some other funny things we saw.

This ride is not associated at all with the Indiana Jones movie franchise.

It might be called Raiders and he may be stealing artifacts while being chased by snakes, but it has nothing to do with those movies.

This is the Hawaiian themed ride.

It's a ferris wheel. Apparently the folks from Maine think Hawaiian people ride ferris wheels and look like the Addams Family. Where's the poi? Where's the pineapple? Where's the Spam!?!

Any guess why these cows didn't want to go into this pavilion?

Hint...Read the sign.

Or, read this sign...

Or this sign...

Check out this t-shirt.

Apparently these pigs weren't inspired by Babe or Wilbur.

My final thoughts on the fair...it was a treat to go and visit the place where those two movies were based. I remember my sister Jeni and I watching Charlotte's web when we were little. We cried so hard when Charlotte died that my mom wouldn't let us watch it again until we were much older.

I didn't cry during Babe, but I did cry at the John Goodman movie Babe. But that was because the John Goodman movie sucked so bad.

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Acadia Mountain...

2011-09-03T08:16:00.001-05:00

Hiked up Acadia Mountain with Brett and Liz this afternoon.

This is Jeannie's Stream. When we were here 5 years ago it was her favorite part.

It was a good hike.

There were lots of places where we had to climb and jump and pull ourselves in and out of ledges and cliffs.

We got to the top and had a great view.

Here's the panoramic view.

The ocean on the other side looked exceptionally pretty.

5 years ago, Brett Jeannie and I made the same trek up the mountain. It was rainy and we weren't in as good of shape. Here we were then...

Here we were today.

So sad that Jeannie wasn't there with us.

Good hike. Lots of fun.

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Look who's here...

2011-09-03T08:15:00.001-05:00

Mel and Brad left yesterday.

It took one man to replace the two of them.

That man is...

Brett.

We hit up a few of old haunts. The first place we went was Candlepin Bowling.

Liz went with us too.

We were pretty much the only people there on a Wednesday afternoon.

We had fun. Candlepin or Candlestick bowling is a lot harder than normal bowling so the scores are a lot smaller. I won the first game and Brett won the second game.

We then went to Jordan Snack Shop to have some of our favorite burgers.

This little old man stood next to me and followed me around the better part of half an hour.

He had lots of info to tell me. He was very nice.

Today, Brett and Liz went for a hike. I stayed in town so I could run on the track. I met up with them later and we had dinner and then went for ice cream.

I asked for a small and this is what they gave me.

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Cadillac Mountain...

2011-08-30T18:15:00.001-05:00

The storm was pretty tame here in Eastern Maine. There was some damage though.

This basketball hoop...

Used to live up here...

The heavy winds pushed it to here...

Yep, it landed right on the actors car and put a dent in it.

Since it was such a nice, clear, post storm day, we drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain.

It was gorgeous.

Brad, Liz, Mel and I wandered awhile looking at the view.

We learned from Brad that the top of the mountain is the first part of North America that sees the sun on most days of the year.

We climbed down so we get could get some better vantage points.

It all looked great.

Afterward, we went to Rosalie's pizza. Brad posed for some photos while I was looking away.

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The Calm Before The Storm...

2011-08-27T18:47:00.001-05:00

While we're not going to get hit with the heavy storm fallout, Maine is in preparation mode for Hurricane Irene.

The normally busy streets were pretty empty this afternoon.

Before coming in today we gassed up the car and bought lots of water.

Since it was so empty, there was no traffic and we got into town super fast.

I walked around and enjoyed the peacefulness of the town.

There is an island directly across from Bar Harbor that is only accessible when the tide is out.

Since the tide was out, I walked across the sandbar and visited the island for the first time.

This is the view of Bar Harbor from the banks of the other island. I used a new app to stitch together a panoramic photo. Click on it and it should be pretty big.

I walked up into the island and enjoyed the forestry of the island.

Storms a'comin everyone!
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Lobster...

2011-08-24T18:40:00.001-05:00

We went to get lobster yesterday at Trenton's.

It was Laura's first time eating a whole lobster.

She was very excited.

Mel was a lobster eating veteran, but she was still creeped out by it.

I made a mistake and ordered a lobster that was too big and too expensive.

We had a lot of fun.

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Bar Harbor...

2011-08-22T15:39:00.001-05:00

In Maine.

Took a train to a plane to a car to a bus to a car to get here.

Here I am with my traveling buddy, Mel Evans.

She joined me on the "bus to the car" leg of my journey.

We got in Saturday afternoon, cleaned up then headed to the theater to watch the first set of shows.

They did a great job. After the first show, Mel and I headed back to the island to get some much needed rest. Since we've been traveling for 2 days we needed to catch up on some much needed sleep.

Here's how tired I was: We stopped off to grab some supplies so we would each have some food and drinks and bathing supplies. I left a whole case of Diet Coke setting in the parking lot! I had set it down so that I could put my other bags in the car and completely forgot it.

Once I realized I'd forgotten to put it in the car I drove back to retrieve it, but it was already gone.

Last night we did our first show. It was a lot of fun. Afterward, Laura, Mel and I took in some late night ice cream.

You can see, it was heart wrenching decision as to which flavors we were going to choose.

I went with the peanut butter iditarod. Look at how much peanut butter they put in.

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Next leg...

2011-08-19T10:29:00.001-05:00

I've been in Chicago since early, early Sunday morning. That day was spent mostly catching up on my sleep. I landed at 5:00am, which is midnight Hawaiian time. So, I was landing at the time that I was usually starting to get ready to go to bed.

Sunday night, I played with my team Deep Schwa. Monday, I caught up on more errands and did Armando at IO.

Most of the week has been spent running errands for the wedding and trying to get things set up for the new apartment.

I was very proactive regarding an apartment. In mid July, I found a place in East Lakeview off of Addison that was advertising a one bedroom that would be available Sept. 1st. I pounced on it.

This week I've spent quite a bit of time getting this set up so that when I get back to Chicago I'll be able to move right in. It'll be the first time in 3 1/2 years that I will have a home.

Right now, I'm sitting in the airport, waiting for my flight to Boston. I'll be in beantown one night before taking a bus to Bangor. From there, someone will pick me up and drive me the rest of the way to Bar Harbor.

I'm headed back to perform at ImprovAcadia for the first time in four years. Looking forward to it.

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Leaving Hawaii...

2011-08-13T20:52:00.001-05:00

Sitting on the plane, waiting to fly to Chicago.

Had a great meal and show with the cast last night where we gave her her birthday gifts. Phil picked out Batman underwear for the cast to give her.

This morning we had breakfast with our Laughtrack friends.

Jeannie had a giant hot chocolate.

Great contract. Great summer. We will miss Hawaii and all the friends we've made here!

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Kauai...

2011-08-12T15:13:00.001-05:00

On Thursday, Jeannie and I took Bud on a full day of excursions.

We started off by tubing down the mountains of a sugar plantation.

We didn't take camera's so here's the closest we could get to showing you what it looked like.

We did the tubing at Kauai Backcountry Adventures. If you ever come here, I highly recommend you tube down the ditches. Jeannie thought it was the most fun excursion we have done in our entire 3 1/2 years of cruising.

From there we drove down to Poipu. We stopped in and got our last Puka Dog.

So good.

We went to the beach for a couple of hours and saw 3 enormous sea turtles swim to the shore. An old lady behind us came back to her family and assured them that it was a waste of time to go look at the turtles because. She said she took about 30 photos of the water before she realized she was taking pictures of a coconut floating in the water. "It's all a hoax," she said. "There's no sea turtles here, just a coconut on a rope."

I looked out at the water and saw that about 30 feet from the turtles, there was indeed a coconut bouncing around in the water.

Why she thought it was tied to a rope, I have no idea. Grouchy old lady completely missed the turtles and deprived her grandkids of seeing them. Bet that whole family is having a delightful vacation with that old bat.

After the beach we drove up to the North Shore to play miniature golf in a new course they built in a botanical garden.

The sun was setting and it was a beautiful evening.

It's a very gorgeous, Eco-friendly course. We even saw bullfrogs.

It was an epic game. Jeannie was 5 strokes back after 9 holes, but tied me for second place on the 16th hole. We were both one stroke back from Bud. On the last hole, Jeannie and Bud both caught bad breaks on the hole and I won the game. Here's Bud falling down laughing when Jeannie's ball hit the hole and bounced out, giving me the win.

It was a long, full day. A perfect day for our last full day on land in Hawaii.

Today we leave Kauai, do two shows and sail to Honolulu.

Tomorrow, we fly home.

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Game Night...

2011-08-10T21:37:00.001-05:00

Had our final "Game Night" with the cast on Monday evening.

Before the games began we had a couple of treats. First, I brought some poi for everyone to try.

They hadn't had any so I bought some in Maui since I figured it was the last time anyone would have chance to get some.

It was not a hit.

After the Poi, we were treated to the "is it just me" comedy stylings of Jeannie Cahill.

It was a much bigger hit than the poi.

I mailed all of my games back to Chicago so we instead played a game that we think Jen and Larrance or Deanna and Rance left behind.

Joe Latessa won and we gave him a standing ovation. It was the first time in his life that Joe has ever won a game. That's not an exaggeration. He has never won a game, ever.

It was a well deserved win. He stomped us.
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Maui...

2011-08-08T14:23:00.001-05:00

Hey look, Jeannie's brother Bud is visiting for our last cruise in Hawaii.

Those aren't just funny hats they are wearing, we took him ziplining.

It was lots of fun. We did it in a forest preserve halfway up Haleakala Mountain.

The last zipline we did was long and fast. We went 55 mph.

Jeannie and I managed to get a photo of us as Bud zipped along behind us.

Since were halfway up the mountain, we went the rest of the way to the top to show Bud the crater.

You'll notice we're all wearing matching sweatshirts. We're the nerds who bought the souvenir shirts of our zipline excursion. They're pretty cool sweatshirts, but the main reason we bought them is because we hadn't planned on going up the mountain. One we decide to go up, we needed to buy something to keep warm.

After seeing the crater we drove to the Hali'imaile General Store.

It's a new place we discovered. For the past several years it has been voted Maui's Best Restaurant by several magazines and travel guides. It was great. Here's one of their signature dishes, the crab pizza.

It's been lots of fun having Bud here.

It's going to be a fun week.
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Random pics...

2011-08-05T01:14:00.001-05:00

A few photos from our last couple of days.

Holly, Phil and Joe were on the tender boat with me on Wednesday.

They went to have a burger eating contest in Kona. Joe won. After eating an indecent amount of burgers, they topped it off by going to Dairy Queen blizzards. Amazing.

Meanwhile, Jeannie and I went to my favorite restaurant in Kona, Quinn's, By The Sea.

The great part of this picture is you can see the photo of Jeannie and her food that we had just taken with her phone.

After eating we went to use the Internet at a hotel that houses The Hawaiian Shirt Museum.

It's been closed for quite awhile now and I'm afraid it might never reopen.

This little chubby girl is the biggest star on the ship.

Everyone knows her. She speaks English and Spanish.

These photos were discreetly taken immediately after a huge tantrum. Which, besides being really cute, is the other reason she's famous on the ship. She throws some colossal hissy fits. It's very impressive seeing her throw a gigantic tantrum while alternating between English and Spanish.

Today we went to Kapa'a.

A nice little town that happens to be the place where we got engaged. In fact, here's the bench where it happened.

It was nice going back there a final time before we leave.

We then went to the Noodle House for lunch.

Notable, because today I tried my first bowl of Saimin, which is Hawaii's version of Ramen.

Notice the egg, ham and won-tons.

Busy week as we head into our final cruise of our contract.
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Maui...

2011-08-02T02:11:00.001-05:00

Jeannie and I did our valley to valley run.

It's an 8 mile run in sunny, sweaty weather. The view is pretty awesome.

We run in between two mountains alongside sugar cane fields. The view at the other end is pretty cool too.

Once we finished we stopped and replenished our systems.

A tired Jeannie got an icee.

We then went over to the farmers market and browsed around.

They had a section of dips and cream cheese spreads that was really impressive.

Each one could be sampled and after a long run, you can bet we sampled all of them.

They also had a section where you could buy a whole coconut and they would cut the meat out for you.

And, it only cost $2.85. What a deal!

We then waited for the bus to drive us back to the other side.

It took 18 minutes for the bus to drive what it took an hour and twenty minutes for us to run.

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Honolulu...

2011-08-01T19:49:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, Scott and Larissa took us to the Honolulu Burger Company.

It was their one year anniversary so they gave us these cake suckers.

All the meat at the Honolulu Burger Company is locally grown.

Oh my lord, it was amazing.

Legitimately, one of the best burgers I've ever eaten.

On top of that, they had Blue Cheese French Fries!

Never heard of doing that, but believe me, I will be doing that A LOT when I get home!
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Kona...

2011-07-30T22:17:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday we stopped in at one of our old Kona haunts, as Nate Dufort would say.

It's a place were we ate all the time with Brett and Chris during our first Hawaii contract. We always ate there after we played tennis. I got the old standby, the Hula Chicken.

A chicken sandwich with pineapple and bacon. Delicious!

On our way back we watched the fisherman return to weigh their fish at the Bullfish Tournament.

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Lost and found...

2011-07-27T15:10:00.001-05:00

On Saturday in Honolulu, Jeannie had a weird thing happen. As we were walking down Ala Moana blvd. I looked down at the ground and saw someone's debit card. I picked it up and dropped it off at the nearest bank branch office that we found in Waikiki.

Several hours later as we were walking back to the ship, I looked down and found...

...another debit card.

But wait, this story doesn't end.

As soon as we got on the ship Jeannie went down to laundry. She opened up the washing machine and out popped a debit card and driver's license.

People, people, people.

Hold on to your stuff. I'm a busy man. I can't spend all my day finding bank branches and dropping off your valuable belongings.

Next time I'm going to need to charge a finder's fee of a Diet Dr. Pepper. (it tastes so much like regular Dr. Pepper!)
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Fountain...

2011-07-21T22:18:00.001-05:00

The most popular spot for kids in Maui on Sundays?

The fountain in front of the movie theater.

It's packed with kids every day.

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Shuffle it...

2011-07-21T18:42:00.001-05:00

Had a bit of a tumultuous week. The needle of my personal thermostat is very high right now.

Here's a sample of some of the things I've dealt with...

Offered a HUGE job. Had to turn it down because I already committed to another job.

Was contacted by a different company about a job opening they have. They asked for a phone interview. When I asked if they could change the time of the phone interview to an afternoon time because I'm currently 5 hours behind them, they retracted their interest. Guess they're morning people!

Had to reprimand a tech for ignoring my tech requests and screwing up our show.

Signed a lease for a new apartment in Chicago and sent out the deposit, first month's rent and lease agreement to the new landlords. Found out that even though I mailed it all out 2 weeks ago, the Chicago Postal system still hasn't delivered it.

Met with the Cruise Director for 2 hours to ensure that comments someone else made didn't start a war and set off a firestorm.

And finally, wedding vendors. Some wedding vendors are the scourge of the earth.

I know a lot of people deal with a lot more pressing issues, but these things really had me hot under the collar this week.

Today, I conquered all the frustration by doing the following...

I found a nice shady spot, put on my headphones and listened to music.

I never do that. If I ever listen to music, I do it while I'm doing something else. I listen while I work out or while I work on my computer, but I never just sit, relax and listen to music.

I turned the shuffle on my top rated songs.

These songs were the first songs to play and they thoroughly relaxed me and cooled me down immensely:

"She came in through the bathroom window" - The Beatles

"Disarm" - Smashing Pumpkins

"Haven't met you yet" - Michael Buble

"Lady Jesus" - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

"We can dance if we want to" - Men Without Hats

"January Hymn" - The Decemberist's.

"Burn Down the Mission" - Elton John

"Home" - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zero's

"I want to know what love is" - Foreigner

And, winding it all down...

"Africa" - Toto

So, I highly recommend you do the same. Find some shade, turn on your music and relax.

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Location:Wilcox Rd,Lihue,United States

Jeannie's Birthday...

2011-07-18T18:10:00.001-05:00

Saturday was Jeannie's Birthday!

She had her annual tea party at Tea At 1024.

This year, she invited our castmates from Second City and a team that she's been coaching in Honolulu.

The biggest and most important part of any tea party is the selection of hats.

Next, you have to choose your teacup.

The rest of the tea party involves drinking tea, eating sandwiches and desserts and having lots and lots of laughs.

Best tea party ever!

Hilo...

2011-07-12T19:03:00.001-05:00

How small is the cabin we live in on the ships? I bent over Sunday to pick up the belt I dropped on the floor and ended up konking my head.

Last night we played Apples to Apples.

That game's always good for some laughs. We're starting to get a good feel for each other so we know how to play our cards. For instance, no matter what the topic, if you play a Captain Kirk card for Phil, he will always pick it. Same goes with Jeannie and Anything Japan.

Saturday, Jeannie and I had a ton of errands to run. We finished with just enough time to grab a quick lunch. We stopped off and snarfed down some pasta at Jeannie's favorite Honolulu restaurant, The Old Spaghetti Factory. The highlight of the very rushed meal was their delicious Olive Tapenade.

It's a Megan Hovde Wilkins fave.

In Kauai, we ran into one of the island's local characters.

We've seen this woman before. She wears a ton of white makeup on her face and has about ten pounds of hair on her head.

She must have the strongest neck muscles in the world to hold up all that hair.

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Run through the valley...

2011-07-05T21:55:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, after our writing class, the students in the class treated Jeannie and I to tickets to Tony And Tina's Wedding at the Manoa Valley Theater.

It was great! I've never seen the show and a few of our friends were in the cast. It was a lot of fun.

Our dear friend Shannon from Laughtrack Theater directed the production. She also was filling in for one of the roles so it was fun getting to watch her do a show.

One of the curious things about the theater was that there is a cemetery out front.

They mentioned it a few times in the show as being the place where Tina's dad was buried, which was very funny.

On Sunday, Jeannie and I decided to do a long run from shore to shore in the valley at Maui.

We ran from Kahului to Kihei. It was 8.8 miles and we ran it in 90 minutes. It was hot, sunny, windy and we were extremely dehydrated after the run, but we did it!

Shore to shore.
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Vacation Hero...

2011-07-01T18:33:00.001-05:00

We filmed a promo video for the ship today. We all got to wear costumes.

I was the Cruise Director.

Holly, Joe and Phil were vacation hero's.

Rich was the lazy, evil server.

He was also Batman.

Jeannie was a passenger who just wanted a poached egg.

The evil Bat-Baker was battled down by our vacation hero's.

It was all very fun. Video may follow some time down the road.

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Genki...

2011-07-01T17:53:00.001-05:00

Jeannie's new favorite restaurant in Kauai is Genki Sushi.

We really haven't liked conveyer belt sushi, but the one in Kauai is quite good.

Yesterday, Jeannie got the Hawaiian special, Spam Sushi.

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3 Years...

2011-06-30T22:40:00.000-05:00

Jeannie and I passed a milestone last week. We didn't even realize it.

The milestone?

As of June 17th, we have been working on cruise ships for Second City for 3 years.

How crazy is that!

Here we are our first week on the Dawn.

This is us last week.

Arcade...

2011-06-27T19:03:00.001-05:00

Last night Jeannie found an arcade that had Japanese style sticker booth's. It made her extremely happy.

The photo's actually turned out pretty good. I'll have to put them up here soon.

Afterward, she found her favorite video game from when she lived in Japan in high school.

While she played her game I looked at the prize wall.

Look at some of those prizes! What kid goes to the arcade and thinks, "I'm going to win enough tickets from skee ball to win that awesome food processor! Or mixer! Or George Foreman Grill!"

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Sunday...

2011-06-26T16:02:00.001-05:00

It's Sunday. Here's what I plan on doing today.

This is the view from the ship as we left Honolulu last night.

Also, in Kona on Wednesday, there were tons of people body surfing next to the dock. It was cool.

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Game night...

2011-06-21T20:58:00.002-05:00

Had a good old fashioned game night Sunday night.

We played the Monopoly game that Brett left on the ship from a couple of contracts ago.

It was a marathon game. We started at 9pm and finished at 1:30am.

It was great fun.

Yesterday Jeannie got a package from her mom. In the package was an awesome treat!

Alamo Crackers! Just like Animal Crackers, but with Texas and Alamo shapes. They're awesome. I love the Alamo, love Texas and love Animal Crackers. They're the perfect treat!

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Busy...

2011-06-19T16:09:00.001-05:00

It's been a busy week.

Rich Baker joined us as a new castmate so we spent all week rehearsing. On Thursday we went to Mariachi's in Kauai for dinner.

Yesterday, while we were in Honolulu, I went to the dentist at 7:30am to have a deep cleaning.

Yowza! Look how the left side of my face is drooping from the Novocain. 3 hours later I left with cleaner teeth and healthier gums.

I was very numb when I left and they told me to go someplace to rest for a couple hours. I didn't want to back to the ship so I found a movie theater showing a movie that I've been wanting to see. I took the bus over and sat in the theater and relaxed for awhile. The movie was outstanding!

I loved it! It was Woody Allen's new movie, Midnight In Paris.

That movie made me so happy. I can't wait to take Jeannie to see it. I think Joe Latessa might come with us as well because he lit up when I mentioned wanting to see it a few nights ago.

After the movie I walked from the Dole Cannery Theater over to Laughtrack for my class. I walked through Chinatown and took a gander at all the fresh food on sale at the street markets.

By that time, my mouth was fully operational again and I was feeling fine.

Busy day at the end of a busy week.
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Honolulu...

2011-06-12T01:39:00.001-05:00

Had lunch before my class with some of our good friends from Laughtrack Theater.

There's Scott, Larrisa and Jen. You can also see part of Jay's arm.

Then of course, there's Jeannie and John.

They took us to a Korean Restaurant. The place is called The Angry Korean Lady.

It was my and Jeannie's first time eating Korean food. We let John order everything for us.

Here's the menu. See if you can figure out what all these things are. I can't.

There are all kinds of signs on the table telling you how to behave around the Angry Korean woman.

To order the food you have to go into the kitchen.

Jen's being careful not to make her any angrier.

It was all very fun and tasty.
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Poipu...

2011-06-10T16:31:00.001-05:00

Because this is our 3rd summer in Hawaii on the cruise ship, I have a pretty set routine every day.

I wake up, work out and then depending on what island we're docked, head out to do stuff.

I've got a routine for every island we go to. If we're in Kauai, I go to the mall or to the Marriott or to downtown. If we're in Kona, I have 3 or 4 places that I have the option to go to and it's the same in Hilo.

Sometimes, that routine gets a little monotonous. I get a little cabin fever and need a break from the normal routine. I need to do something different so I can forget that I have lived on a cruise ship for 3 1/2 years.

Yesterday was one of those days. I needed a break and needed to get far, far away from the ship. On the spur of the moment I got a rental car for $20 from Priceline and told Jeannie we were shoving off for the day.

We went to the South Shore at Poipu.

It's a part of the island we've never been to. It's really beautiful. We went to the beach and then to the Spouting Horn.

As we were walking away from the horn we saw that people had carved their names in the leaves of the tree.

We stopped at a shopping center to get a soda and discovered they had a Puka Dog there.

Can't tell you how happy that made me.

We got back in the car and decided to drive all the way up to the North shore since we've never been there either.

We found lots of beautiful and cool things there.

Like, the Kilauea Lighthouse.

This tiny church built completely out of coral.

And this taro field in the valley next to Princeville.

We then headed back and stopped at Kapaa to have dinner at the Brick Oven Pizza.

It was a very adventurous day. Hopefully it'll help me break out of my cabin fever.

***sidenote- it's Friday in Kauai. Remember what I told you about Fridays in Kauai?

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Maui...

2011-06-07T20:34:00.000-05:00

On Sundays Jeannie and I start the day off early by going to church.

We visited a few in Kahului and decided we liked this one the best.

The minister is Japanese and he's pretty funny. It's an open air church so I always strategize where I'm going to sit by which of the glass doors are open.

This week during the first prayer, a woman got up and closed the glass door. I opened my eyes and was pretty annoyed to see that I wouldn't be getting the breeze.

After church we took the bus to Paia. We went there specifically to eat at the Paia Fish Market.

We went there one other time with Megan, John and Brett and they had the best fish I've ever eaten.

On the menu this week they had types of fish that I've never heard of before.

I got the cajun grilled Ono.

That green stuff on the side is wasabi butter.

Jeannie got the blackened cajun Opah.

So you're not confused, that's cajun Opah, not Oprah.

Honolulu...

2011-06-05T19:09:00.019-05:00

Saturdays have become very busy.

Jeannie coaches in the mornings and I teach in the afternoons.

While Jeannie was teaching I made my way up north to Waikiki to say goodbye to one of our castmates. On the way back I stopped at Puka Dog.

So good.

I then met up with Jeannie and Squire and Monica. They took us to Bubbie's.

Bubbie's makes their own home made ice cream. We each got a slice of their ice cream pie.

Squire and Monica got the blueberry ice cream pie.

Jeannie got the thin mint ice cream pie.

Those lines down the middle are girl scout thin mint cookies!

I got the peanut butter ice cream pie.

It was all very delicious. Afterward, we went to Laughtrack for my afternoon class.

Across the street from Laughtrack is the Hawaii Theater. It's a big place for wedding photos.

Every Saturday we see a line of brides and grooms standing around waiting to get their photos taken. The students from my class told me that there are several companies that sell wedding packages to Japanese brides and grooms. They get married in Japan, but come to Honoulu to get their photos taken in Western bridal clothing. It's all the rage in Japan.

We got back on the ship just in time to sail away from Honolulu. Another week at sea.

Nature shots...

2011-06-04T15:47:00.001-05:00

For some reason, Fridays have been very rainy in Kauai.

I bought a light rain windbreaker jacket 5 weeks ago in Kauai. When I leave my room on Fridays I don't even check the weather, I just go ahead bring my jacket with me.

Sunsets are always interesting in Hawaii. They produce colors like I've never seen in the sky before.

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Random notes...

2011-06-03T02:02:00.001-05:00

Hawaiian's obsession with mushy meat in a can is not limited to Spam.

Routinely, the biggest displays at the front of stores are reserved for Vienna Sausages. Every cart in a shopping line usually has a case of Vienna sausages in it.

****

We had dinner at the Liberty Restaurant last night.

There's Joe and Phil.

And me and Holly.

This afternoon we had lunch at Genki Sushi. Today they had cupcakes on the belt today.

When we don't have a lot to do in Kauai, we usually head over to the Starbucks at Kukui Grove Mall. Since we've gone there so much the past three years, we've gotten very familiar with the regulars who are there every day.

Jeannie's sitting next to "the smelly guy".

This guy comes in every afternoon wearing the same red t-shirt. He sits in one of the chairs, takes off his flip flops, reads the newspaper and falls asleep for 3 hours.

We thought he was homeless, but discovered that he's not. He slept in front of us at the movie theater 2 weeks ago and we've seen him sleeping at several nice restaurants in town.

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Videos...

2011-06-02T17:57:00.000-05:00

We have a few more videos that we've put up in the past few weeks.

Have you heard about the Barefoot Running craze? It's in all the running magazines that Jeannie and I read so we did a Gym Buddies about it.

We have gotten a lot of people who google "barefoot running" directed to our video. Because of that, this video has a lot of hits. Subsequently, all of the Gym Buddies episodes have gotten more watchers. We've gotten a lot of feedback from folks and that's made us very happy. We may have to fly Jo out to Hawaii to film some more episodes!

If you like the videos, help us out and push the "like" button.

We also have a few more David and Deirdre, The Happy Couple episodes up. You can watch those here.

Like them too, if they made you laugh.

Kauai...

2011-05-27T02:19:00.001-05:00

While Kauai is one of the prettiest places I've ever visited, it's also always one of the most frustrating places. Lots of strange, weird rules and rituals here.

Tonight, I went to see Hangover 2. I knew it had bad reviews and wasn't supposed to be very good, but I wanted to see a movie after the misery of this afternoons horrific Bulls game.

The theater was packed full of teenagers. I braced myself for lots of talking and distractions, but it never came. Aside from the kid in front of me who taped the entire movie on his iPhone, it was rather uneventful.

This theater has the annoying habit of not starting their movies until the theater is almost full. If there's still a line at the ticket counter or concession stand, the movie is not starting.

Thus, the 7:00 movie did not start until 7:15. The previews at the beginning of the movie lasted 30 minutes. That's right. THIRTY MINUTES!

When the opening credits of the movie started, I looked at the clock on my phone and it said 7:45.

This is a problem because I needed to get to the shuttle by 8:50 so I could get back to the ship. I left at 8:40, meaning I only got to see 55 minutes of the dang movie. Frustrating. I complained a bit as I was leaving, but the staff pretended to not be able to speak English. Forgetting the fact that I see them almost every week and that Hawaii is part of America and everyone speaks English here.

Ah, Kauai. Such a pain in my butt sometimes.

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Honolulu...

2011-05-22T20:53:00.001-05:00

On Friday we were able to watch the ship pass by the Napalli Coast from Jeannie's parent's balcony.

It was a nice way to see it.

Yesterday, we walked around and looked at some of the downtown sites.

We went to the Aloha Tower and took the elevator to the top.

We then walked by the palace.

And the King Kamehameha statue.

We then went over the Mission House Museum and Cafe for high tea.

I then said goodbye to Jeannie's folks and went to Laughtrack to teach a writing class for the Gridiron project.

It was a very fun week having Jeannie's parents around. I hope they had a good time. Jeannie and I sure did.
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Kauai...

2011-05-20T14:35:00.000-05:00

Holy Smokes, we had a busy day on Thursday.

We started the day with a tour of the bridge of the ship.

Jeannie's dad served in the Navy for almost 30 years so the officers on the ship were more than happy to give us a peek at the inner workings of the big ship.

It was all very cool. We were accompanied by Sarah, the Cruise Director.

After that we headed out to show Jeannie's folks the island.

We stopped off at the Kauai Coffee farm.

We see Kauai Coffee everywhere so it was fun to see where it came from.

They have a nice self-guided tour.

And, lots and lots of free samples of the coffee.

After that we stopped at the little town of Hanapepe.

It was there that we walked over the famous Hanapepe Swinging Bridge.

Jeannie didn't like it too much, but she smiled long enough for us to take a picture.

Across from the bridge we found a little shop that sold tarot chips.

The owner was so sweet that Jeannie wanted to get her picture taken with him.

We then drove over to Waimea Canyon.

There are always little fruit stands at most of the attractions that you visit in the islands so Jeannie stopped and got her first bite of pure sugar cane.

They chop it up and you chew on the actual sugar cane. It was good.

There's a lodge nestled along the top of the canyon so we stopped there and had lunch.

We particularly enjoyed the lilikoi pie.

From there, we drove back down the canyon and went to Barking Sands Beach. There's a Navy Missile Defense Base there on the edge of island. Since Jeannie's dad is a retired officer, he was able to get us on the base so we could get a little tour of the place.

They have a great beach there and we walked around on it for awhile.

As we stood there, we realized that this was probably the furthest west we could ever go in the United States.

It was a very fun and eventful day.

Lahaina...

2011-05-18T16:38:00.001-05:00

On Monday we took Jeannie's parents to Lahaina.

It's on the South-West side of Maui. It's one of my favorite places in Maui. I especially love this Banyan tree.

That looks like it's multiple trees, but it's not. It's one gigantic tree whose roots and branched take up an entire city block.

We walked around in the shops for awhile and then had lunch at "Cheeseburger's in Paradise".

I thought this place was another version of Jimmy Buffet's crappy Margaritaville restaurant, but it wasn't. this place was a hundred times better.

Yesterday, we went to the famous Ken's House of Pancakes and a had the chilli cheese Loco Moco and the Kokonut pancakes.

Afterward, we showed Them the Japanese Garden.

It was a nice, sunny day in Hilo so it was a pleasant stroll.

We walked along Banyan Drive and showed them the Banyan Trees that were planted by celebrities. Here's the tree planted in 1933 by Babe Ruth.

And the tree planted by Amelia Eardhart.

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Looks Who's Here...

2011-05-16T04:57:00.001-05:00

Look who's visiting us in Hawaii this week!

Jeannie's parents.

They got onboard yesterday and we got to spend time with them in their cabin. They've got a balcony!

Today we took them to see Haleakala.

Love that place.

It's the 5th time I've been there. I'm not Mr. Haleakala (That's Brett's title), but I sure do like going up there to see it.

These photo's just don't do it justice. It's really such a majestic, breath taking place.

After driving down from the crater we went to Paia. Now, I'm not Ms. Paia (That's Megan Hovde Wilkin's title), but I really like Paia.

Such a quaint, eclectic town. Lots of cool shops and some really cool restaurants.

We finished the evening by going to Mama's Fish House.

We went there last year with Adal when he came to visit. (Yes, Adal's known as Mr. Mama's Fish House)

I had a Lilikoi Colada!

Now, I'm not Miss Lilikoi (Jeannie's title), but that was a freaking awesome drink.

The meal was amazing, the company was even better. So nice to have Jeannie's parents here!

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Kauai...

2011-05-13T16:03:00.001-05:00

My shopping bag dilemma has been resolved. Carla Janus sent me these very handy cloth bags that fold up and are easy to carry around.

They're made of windbreaker material so they're very light and sturdy. They're also small enough that they fit into the lower cargo pocket of my shorts.

On the shuttle bus ride over to the mall, I snapped a photo of this happy camper.

Looks like someone got a hat on their vacation.
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Go Cubs...

2011-05-11T18:42:00.000-05:00

This blog entry is just to tease my Cardinal friends who read this blog.

Here you go Mike Loeffelholz, Kay Mandrell and Brian Finley and all the rest of you redbird crazies:

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Honolulu...

2011-05-08T15:01:00.001-05:00

Had a very fun day in Honolulu.

The past couple of years I have coached an improv team from Laughtrack Theater and they have been so wonderful at showing Jeannie and I around Oahu.

To return the favor, I was able to bring them aboard the ship to show them how we see Hawaii.

Joining them was Kim Potter, one of the owners of Laughtrack Theater.

I gave them a full tour that started in the terminal.

We scoured the entire ship.

Scott even got to high-five the Abe Lincoln statue.

We noticed that in the Liberty Restaurant, Scott's Captain America shirt matched the decor of the room.

After the tour we enjoyed a nice lunch on the back deck of the Aloha Buffet. As usual John had Jeannie cracking up.

I've really loved working with these guys and they're always so sweet and nice. It was such a fun time to see our Honolulu friends and show them the ship.

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Luau...

2011-05-06T04:30:00.001-05:00

Our schedule changed up a bit this week. Shows on Tuesday, Thursday and then another 2 shows on Friday.

We had a fun rehearsal on Wednesday before celebrating Phil's birthday at the French restaurant on the ship.

Tonight we went to the Luau.

It was fantastic, as always.

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Honolulu...

2011-05-01T15:24:00.001-05:00

Rehearsed in Honolulu with a new local improv group. They contacted me back in January to see if I could work with them. First come, first serve.

What's the difference between improv rehearsals in Hawaii and improv rehearsals in Chicago?

Improv rehearsals in Hawaii sometimes take place outdoors!

That's something that should happen more. Improv shouldn't be confined by walls. Break down that fourth wall, literally!

***

The lovely Carla Janus has offered to send me a special shopping bag. Thank you. I'll include my Hawaii address below. That way anyone can send me anything they want! Treats, notes, cards, tickets to ball games, video games, gift cards to Best Buy, treats, anything!

Jeff Griggs
PO Box 331288
Kahului, HI. 96733

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Easter...

2011-04-29T00:50:00.001-05:00

Jeannie and I went to Easter services in Maui.

What's different about Hawaiian Easter?

Well, for one, there's a Hula Dance in church on Easter.

The other main difference is that everyone's Easter candy melts a lot faster here. The kids in front of us had chocolate all over their Easter clothes way before we even got to the offering.

Afterward Jeannie and I went to have dinner at this sushi place everyone on the ship's been telling us about for the past 3 years. They serve 1/2 price sushi everyday from noon to 2pm and then again from 9pm to 1am.

How was it?

Well, it tasted like a place that would have 1/2 price sushi.

There's a new initiative that's taking place in Hawaii that's driving me crazy. It's mainly only being enforced in Kauai.

No shopping bags! They refuse to give you any bags for anything!

It's sooooooo annoying. It's also frustrating because they get so snippy when you ask for a bag.

So, here I am, headed back to the ship without anything holding my snacks.

Preposterous!

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