I’m back!  So it seems people were actually interested in my life and read the monday night recaps (some with great anticipation, it seems), so I’m going to try and bring it back.  And it was a nice weekend to do so.  Let’s see…

  • [Arrested Development] So ever since the Office ended it’s season, I’ve been needing another show to watch while I edit and such.  My college roommate suggested Arrested Development, and since all episodes were on Hulu, I decided to give it a try.  I must say- HILARIOUS!  In a different way.  A lot of the humor is in the narration, the do a lot of recaps of the previous episodes, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.  I just recently got into the 3rd season (which I believe is the last one before it got taken off the air), so I’m trying to space it out a bit.  Anyone got other show recommendations for me, preferably where all seasons are available to watch online?
  • [GSL] After setting up the men’s summer basketball league a couple years back, we finally had it running well enough to try our hand at a new league.  With much love to the girls who help us out each year, we were able to set up a girls summer volleyball league with HUGE success.  We had over 70 participants in the inaugural season, and there was quite the competition!  I only had my camera the first two weeks, so here’s a glimpse of the early days of the league.  (Big ups to the “mary’s” for taking home the title of the first ever Girls Summer League Champs!)



  • [Car Trouble] I seem to have had a little mishap this past weekend.  After shooting the church formals at the wedding, I headed out to head over to the groom’s place when I saw this:

    So sad.  It’s not the nicest car, but it’s still my car. (tear)  In other news, My civic just passed the 100,000 mile mark!  Outside of some minor dents and dings, this thing has been very faithful over the past 8 years.  We’ll see if I can push it another 100,000! (wish me luck :))

  • [Losing Things] I don’t know why, but I seemed to have misplaced a bunch of stuff at this past wedding, too!  I’m missing a StoFen for one of my flashes, the screws for my light stands, as well as my macbook pro power cord.  I guess it’s just bad luck.
  • [Taco Bell] If you’ve followed my tweets from last night, you probably heard of some madness from Taco Bell (the one located on 9631 N Milwaukee Ave, Niles, IL).  Now, I think I’ll do a ‘blender’ about customer service using this as a case study, but for now here’s the gist of the madness-After the girls’ summer league, a couple of the guys went out to taco bell to grab a quick meal.  We got in at 10:50, with the dining area closing at 11pm.  We asked if were able to eat quickly and go, but they said no (no big deal, we understand).  One friend was playing the charity-donation game where you drop a coin in a machine to win like a free taco or something.  He won, manager came over to verify, and we’re good.  He drops another coin in, and then another friend plays and wins again.  They say that only one win per person, per day.  We told them it was two different people, and then they started to argue about it, not wanting to make another taco for us.  At this time, we said to look at the security tape because then they’ll know we’re not lying (we just want the truth!), which might have gotten them a bit annoyed, but they finally allowed us to get it.  My friend went from the counter to the fountain drinks, where he believes he put down his wallet/phone, and then went back to the counter with only his wallet.  We got the food and went to eat outside on our cars.
    As soon as he got to the car, he realized he didn’t have his phone, so he went back in to look for it.  The employees were of no help, not offering any suggestions or whatnot.  We asked again to see the security camera to at least verify that he did have the phone in there at some point (as they said the camera only points at the register).  One employee went to the back, came out a few minutes later and told us he saw nothing on the cameras.  At this point we felt that they quite possibly had some knowledge of it, so we called the cops to at least file a report.  They called their manager who then showed up from her house, and asked us to stay outside until the cops came.  She was upset at us for trying to blame her employees of stealing, when we wanted to see the security tape.  The police officers came and just recorded both stories, asked to the security tapes, to which the manager said they don’t have access to rewind the tapes- only the corporate supervisor can do that.  (Ummm…does that mean the first guy lied to us?)  So that pretty much ended any hope.
    We continued to wait outside and try to do our own detective work in tracking the phone.  Through contacting AT&T, checking phone logs and such, we were able to semi-track the location of the phone to a mile radius, as well as know who has been contacted by it.  To this point, we still haven’t found it, but we’re slowly making progress.  A quick 30 minute dinner at Taco Bell turned into a 3-hour ordeal.  Of which a lot of stress could have been avoided, I think, with good customer service on the part of the Taco Bell employees.  Like I said, I’ll probably do a video about my views on the whole CS issue, as I think it warrants an interesting discussion.
  • [Cubbies] OK, so I haven’t been following them as much as I would like, specifically because of the great playoff runs by the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Blackhawks this year.  Also, we have been playing terribly.  But recently we’ve pulled out some great wins (a few come-from-behind ones), which is getting me excited again.  Go, Cubs, Go!!!
  • [Wisconsin Dells] This weekend I’ll be heading out with my family and my sister’s in-laws to the Dells for a little vacation, and I’m looking forward to the break!  One guarantee- I will not be riding any roller coasters there.

Hope that kept you entertained :)  I know its a little past midnight, but hey, it’s back, right?!  As always, if you have anything you’d like me to comment about, let me know!