My Parents!

This is a picture of the first time my parents visited me in Chicago- in my former bedroom the size of a walk-in closet.  Cept with no closet.

Last week was my dad's birthday. Upcoming  (uh tomorrow actually!) is my parents' anniversary, 30 years.  So I thought I'd write a little about them and some memories.

I'm the oldest.  These days, that means you're the one that takes care of your siblings while your dad isn't around and your single mom is working.  But for me that meant that my parents spoiled the crap out of me.  And my mom was trying to work and my dad was getting his Ph.D.  I only now BEGIN to understand how hard it might have been to be married with a kid and in grad school.  Gross.  

But that meant that my dad bought a computer, at least under the auspices that he needed it for school.  It was made by the very same company who's product I type on now- Apple.  It had a 3.5" floppy drive and less hard drive space than the size of the picture I posted above.  But he taught me to use it, when I was like three.  I remember, too.   He taught me so many things, and the more I live and learn, the more I look back and remember the things like counting to ten in Spanish that he taught me when I was little.  I realized he was constantly teaching me, always telling me I was smart, and I always loved it.

My mom on the other hand was the traditional good stay-at-home mom (she just went to work while I was sleeping, and for some reason it was really exciting to sleep in my parents' bed while she was gone- maybe it was the electric blanket).  She made home-cooked meals for us almost every night until I was like in high school.  She washed my clothes (even when I was in college) and was the best about buying silly things like deodorant and socks, whenever I needed them.  Like I said, spoiled.  And we're talking including now :)

 I have snippet memories from when I was really young, and I remember being excited about little things.  I remember really loving my parents, being so excited when "DAD!!!" got home from work every day or mom came home from work on the weekends (in the mornings).  Kissing dad goodnight on his 5 o'clock shadow.  My parents would tell me bedtime stories, tuck me in, all that jazz.  I remember my pilly little Transformers and He-Man sheets and the eventually ratty chocolate-milk colored blanket I had for years.  I remember of course going to my grandparents' house all the time, making (or at least smelling) bread, pasta, pasta sauce, swimming, and (this was much more fun with siblings) riding my Big Wheel around the pool.

When we moved (and I had siblings) I have plenty of memories.  The house before we moved to Niles.  I remember painting it mint green with my siblings.  The tree house my dad built (and then the tree like died and got chopped down a couple years later).  There were damn peonies that apparently my mom liked, which traumatized us as kids because they were right near the gate to get in the yard, and covered with ants.  To this day, I hate peonies.

We never got a dog, and we never got a Nintendo or Sega, we never had Little Debbie stuff or fruit snacks, Doritos or name brand shoes.  At least not until the fourth child came along- that was about the time we got all those things that I was jealous of other kids for having.  The thing is, to this day I appreciate the hell out of having stuff like that.  Won't take it for granted.  And wasn't traumatized by not having the extra stuff that the rich kids had- though I coulda been a way better soccer player if we could afford summer camps :) 

But really the more I reflect on my memories from a long time ago, the more they all coalesce into a feeling of happiness, security, fun, and love.  And the more I put together those memories with my experiences now, and realize that those parents that loved me so much when I was a kid and put up with me when I was a teenager (which lets be honest kinda lasted into my 20s) are still the same parents who love me now.  A lot. 

Its easier to see now that I live in Chicago.  Emails and phone calls from my dad, who loves cooking food when we're home (I guess its "we" now since there's Tiffany), IMs from my mom, who still does my laundry when I come home, make it worthwhile to come home and sad to leave.  Its the little things like that- trips to the grocery store, mass together, lunch on Saturday, sitting on the patio, seeing whats in the fridge, getting the Little Debbies that we now have out of the cupboard, that make it home, that make it like I never left the minute I get there, that make it like I still live there if it weren't for having to take the train back on Sunday evening. 

Those are the things I appreciate about my parents, and about my family, and will always.  The things I take for granted but try not to, the things that make it special to be home each and every time and sad to leave.  The things that make home a nurturing, happy, safe place to be.  Its not about the money or the time spent, but about the love, the gestures of kindness, the sincere caring that goes into something like a homemade pasta lunch before I leave, followed by the remaining sauce canned up for me to take with me- like love in a jar :)  Love tastes good with lots of garlic.

Happy Anniversary to my parents!!  I have a small picture they sent me, along with a sticky note that says "We Love You!" up on my wall above my desk.  Right next to a picture of me and my grandma. 

The Posting Continues...

Lots of entries.  Did I talk about work?  Its good.  I get paid more than I ever have, and get to work downtown, and unlike school its only 40 hours a week, instead of getting casually tossed vast amounts of work over the weekend like I don't need any time to BUY SOME DAMN GROCERIES.

Let me digress, or sidetrack, or uh, vent for a sec though.  I take the train then walk to work from there.  Downtown.  I see hundreds of people crossing the street with me on the way, or rather NOT crossing the street.  If I were in a worse mood I'd really start beyotching about the subject, but it still bothers me.  I feel like I'm reading a paragraph out of 1984 (um, the BOOK, not the year- you can't read a year) every time I walk fully across a completely empty of traffic street, watching the people on the other sidewalk looking back up over my head waiting for the little white man to show up on the screen so they know its safe to walk.  What really blows my mind is the people who actually give me quizzical looks, and glance back and forth from me to giant orange hand, back to me, up again reassuringly to the orange hand, as if Newton's 4th Law was that people don't cross the street unless the little white man says they can.  I guess that's how city folk on autopilot going to the same mindless job for 20 years operate.  But geez.

Well we're almost caught up with my life here.  If only there was enough time to sit around and wait for everything to upload that I'd love to post- videos, songs, etc.  Work is going well.  Swell.  The 9-5 isn't so bad- especially when last Monday was 14 hours because of a deadline, and I got to cut the rest of my days short.  Not too bad.  I'm actually having to refer back to my Google Calendar to remember what I did enough to blog about it here.

So it looks here on my calendar like...oh YES!  Apple released their new iPhone.  Aaaaand that's it.  No other products.  No tablet computer, no new laptops, not even a 32 gig iPhone.  That said, I'm buying one.  They come out July 11th.  Not doing THAT, cause I'd hafta wait in line for days.  So we'll see how many weeks I hafta wait before I could actually walk in the store and buy one.  As long as its before I go to California with Chris and my dad.  Oh yes, we're going to California.  Just to visit Apple and Craig's List's corporate headquarters'.  Okay thats not true.  We're actually going to visit our cousin Connie, see SF and Alcatraz, Vegas, Yosemite, Sequoia Nat'l Park, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, things in LA, PCH/ Hwy 101.  Uhhhhh, NOT in that order.  That was freestyle.  It'll be 12 days of us and a rental car.  Hopefully something with good gas mileage.  

Also, I started playing soccer.  That's GREAT.  Its hot out, the sun is shining in my eyes, I skinned my knee on the turf, but its way fun.  I'm in good enough shape to play the whole game (lame 25-minute halves, but take what you can get).  Speaking of being in shape, Tiffany and I ran a 5K this Saturday.   I won't go into details but uh, "we" were pretty winded after the race :)  They then had Robinson's Ribs feed us rib sandwiches or pulled pork, so that was great, and some cover band Mike & Joe from Indy who were pretty good.  Oh back to my calendar.  I'm determined to catch you up on my life by the end of this entry and this evening.P>

SO also I went to my roommate um OLD roommate Jeff's graduation party- he's a doctor.  Just like on Scrubs!!  I can't wait for him to meet Turk.  I'm so excited.  But seriously, its awesome- we are all mere pawns compared to him.  He'll be making six figures I think before I have my Master's.  Oops.  Maybe that's why Nathan is interested in pre-med.  The day after that party we had my roommate (I guess also FORMER, now) Matt's going away party- he's now in Japan teaching Engrish.  And current roommate Josh is in Spain.  He re-dislocated his shoulder for the third time

Coldplay came out with a new album, that I was cynical about but interested nonetheless, and it turned out to be magic.  More on that later.  I need an entry just about music.  I've also been trying to have lunch with friends downtown once a week (not more cause its too time-consuming and spensive) because I have like ten friends working within 1 mile of me.  Not bad.  This past weekend Tiffany and walked around Lincoln Park Zoo after the race, and Dave Esch came over to visit since in a month he's moving to Colombia, and he's I suppose an older friend than Josh.  He and his parents are what got me and my family (school and friendwise) where we are today.  Thanks Dave.  Too bad I didn't think he was driving over, and didn't mention there was a Cubs game.  A Cubs SOX game.  Geez.  At least the Cubs swept (as if I really care that much about baseball) but they're playing at Comiskey next weekend.  Yeah I still call it that- the Sox park in the ghEtto.  I could be going to school across the street from there, at IIT!

Lastly, no more pictures but a little wrap-up of what the future of the summer holds- watching lots of movies, reading Modern House 1, 2, and 3 which ROCK, Tiffany's friend Rose visiting this weekend, her mom visiting for like 7 days and coming to SB for 4th of July, seeing Wanted and Dark Knight (both filmed in Chicago) among other films like Hulk, Get Smart, XFiles and such that I hope to see in SB (for $2.50 in Niles!!), video chatting with my roommate Matt from Japan (sweet), playing more soccer, going to the Taste of Chicago, seeing the Farnsworth House (its FAMOUS, Google it, my dad and cousin Christine coming to Chicago to attend the Landmark Forum (without which who knows what I'd be doing or what I'd be like now, I certainly wouldn't have met Tiffany), and finally (as if there isn't lots of other stuff) Tiffany's parents and siblings are coming here and SB for Labor Day weekend.  All these events include Tiffany of course.  She still is due to write an entry herself, like a guest blogger here I guess :)  The second two months of summer will go by faster and awesomer than the first month.  School you stay away for awhile.  

Oops forgot the picture of the Wack Grandchildren...

Well summer as I see it, starting the first week of June, is already a week over.   Roughly 11 weeks left.  (Oops I wrote this awhile ago- JUNE has one week left!!!) (Ps I feel like Aunt Mary/Uncle Neil/Uncle Steve every time I say "oops" followed by some phrase.)  My three straight weekends in SB are come and gone and its time for three straight weekends in Chicago.  (I only have one weekend of those three left now).  The heat is coming, but the humidity is here.  Still haven't done much swimming, after all those weekends in the town where family has pools.  Its time to enjoy the deck, the sun, the cornhole, the roommates, the girlfriend, the city, the beach, the beer.  I mean the uh, I don't drink.  The gin and tonics.  :)  Yum.   I'm hoping to spend lots of time with Pat in his in-laws' new condo, and Tiffany can finally meet Nickie, now that she even met Pat's parents this past weekend.  (We're actually going on Wednesday, watching a movie and fireworks over Navy Pier- don't you love me editing my own writings?  And Nickie isn't coming.)  Yep, we did the graduation party circuit one last time for Nathan's high school graduation.   He wore the sweet white suit.  We chest bumped when he came off stage with his diploma.  Yes, that happened.  I leave it up to Chris to hook me up with the pictures and such.  Food and drink at parties were good and fun and its always entertaining/weird/sobering about how old I am to see random people and their kids who are no longer kids or their kids who now have kids, at these kinda parties.

We did also see Narnia.  On a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being if they made a sequel to Ellen DeGeneres' festering dung pile "Mr. Wrong" with a more mediocre actor than Bill Pullman and more annoying kids, and a 3 being a new Avengers movie starring Iron Man, Spiderman, AND Captain America (which I would deem a good thing), I give Narnia a 2.

I recently spent a lot on dress shirts so I could start being more respectable and having clothes to wear to work, and so I could start looking almost as trendy as my cousin Nick :)  He does more shopping in Chicago than I do I think!  Graduation parties reminded me I never had a college graduation party.  I could use that money about now :) (On a sidenote, I've since spent more on more shirts.  I have a problem.  Really.  I'm going on my second year-plus hiatus from entering GAP now.)

I'd also like to mention that my girlfriend looks cute in summer clothes.

I'd also like to shout out to my cousin Eric and his girlfr-iancee Jill cause I get to be in their wedding.  Sweet.  With Chris.  The best man is like 8" taller than me.  That's all for now.

Pictures. Finally! I know.

Just for the record, I wrote this bloody like two weeks ago.

I should post some pictures.  Oh, like from Laura's Wedding!  Sweet.  Look at this rockin family.  Nathan is wearing his father's wedding suit as is family tradition.  Yeah I made that up.  

It was a good family time, as weddings always are.  There was chocolate, there was beer, there was food, that's just about enough for a good evening for me.  Though one of those Mango "Naked" fruit smoothie things would be great right about now.  Mmmmm so mango.  There's good pictures of engaged couples, engaged Wack couples that is, engaged Wack siblings in fact.  

Good pictures of ten Wack siblings, good pictures of all the Wack grandchildren.  

Pictures of Aidan and Ian.  Aidan is basically awesome.  He smiles a lot, only is slightly mischievous, and is fun to joke around with. He is a pretty happy kid, kinda like Patrick Heckaman his cousin.  Also happy, also awesome, and not so reserved as his brothers.  I have a hard time with the quiet ones.

.

Looks like my mom gets the most photo appearances of the day.

I have yet to accomplish any of the major projects I have scheduled for the summer, as I managed to squander my week off cleaning my room, downloading music, trying to hang out with my roommates more, and shopping for some trendy somewhat artsy distinctly metrosexual but completely perfect for my profession expensive dress shirts at only somewhat less that expensive prices.  That's what TJ Maxxxxx, Filene's Basement, and Nordstrom Rack are good for.  That, and paying *only* $100 for $200 trendy stupid jeans that aren't worth $50 but for their trendy cool brand name.  Thanks, overpaying for GAP jeans is enough for me.  I kind of rant a lot.  That's equal parts reflection and notification.

My summer projects include finishing a drawing for Josh's sister (more like a do-it-immediately-cause-I-started-a-year-and-a-half-ago), work on a website with Pat so I can make something that will earn money, spend time with my roommates, go on dates with Tiffany, do lots of rollerblading so I have buns of steel, and get to know my classmates outside of CLASS.  I did get quite a few small things done during my week off and since then, like download all that music, clean up pictures and files on my computer, clean up my room and organize my desk, finish reading my backlog of magazines, play cornhole, and play Rock Band.  More of the last two definitely will round out my summer.  I need to play guitar though, REAL guitar that is, and actually better myself.  Also wanna watch a bunch of movies, read some of the books on my list (and on my desk), play some soccer (I signed up for a league!) and do lots of other fun weekend things I didn't have time (or the fortunate weather) to do during school.  Oh summer, you will be magnificent.

Hi there.

To get back to the past though, I didn't do as well on my grades as I had hoped.  You can guess that was in the class I didn't enjoy from day one- yet worked really hard in, made a lot of models, and ended up with some cool stuff.  Yeah if I'd have known I was gonna get a C (yeah, there, I got a *C*) I would have put in less time and energy, cause I could have, and my life would have been more enjoyable.  Well, it was partly my work, partly my attitude, but I didn't feel very challenged, at least in good ways, or very nurtured or educated, more just prodded around and worked to death.  I did learn a lot though.  Including how not to get a C in the future.  Thankfully my other grades made up for that one.  Unthankfully, its worth 6 credits.  Blast.

Okay seriously I have so much good new music that I'm like a kid at Christmas trying to play with all his toys at once.  Or Chris wearing all his new Christmas clothes to mass :)  Or me eating all my candy.  I'm Jack Sprat but my wife, who will eat no lean, (who always was nameless-why?), she inhabits my brain.  Someday my eating habits will catch up with me.  Or I'll just get punished by God and have one of those kids who is like 100 lbs in kindergarten.  Blast.

I'm basically just rambling.  Aren't I.  That's what happens when I don't have school work to do all weekend, or for three months for that matter.  I could have taken summer courses because I got granted a tuition waiver, so it woulda been free, but I hadta take 6 credits minimum, cept all classes outside my department were during the day, and my department classes were 4 credits each, meaning I had to take 8 credits basically, meaning I had to be in class 4 nights a week for two months, basically.  Yeah already did the negative free time thing for 9 months, I'm good for right now, thanks.  Unfortunately it would have been incredibly useful to take the basic and advanced Digital Media courses, since everything I do, and everything that takes lots of time, is digital, design software stuff.  So instead I'll have to incessantly bug the ones who took the classes to help me out.  Great.

I'm Back. Uh, again. Yeah.

Hello again.  Sorry about the wrong address again.  Not sure whether to think I was right that no one would save the address and thus I should email it to everyone each time, or whether I've just created dependencies because everyone knows I'll email the address so they don't save it.  Whatever.

I promised entries right away.  Oops.  Can't figure out when time flies faster- being busy with school or busy with life.  Either.  This weekend marks two of three in a row in South Bend.  Busy, but it'll be fun.  But I'll get to current things later I suppose.   Still wrapping up the past eh...

But first more of the present.  I've been listening this past week to music I spent a day and a half of my week off, which was two weeks ago now, downloading music.  Yeah, I stole most of it.  I know, I'm going to hell.  I bought some, and I'll still buy full real albums if they're worth buying.  But to me that means never wanting to hit Next Track.  And that doesn't happen too often.  Coldplay's last album I *did* buy, then sold it a week later cause it disappointed me.  I'm opinionated and serious about my music, at times I think I should be a music journalist, or something.  Or something.  My point though was that I downloaded 250 songs, and after giving most of em a listen at least once, and deleting quite a few, now comes the time where I really get to start enjoying the good ones.  Really get obsessed with em, like listen to a song 30 times in a week or so.  Those songs you grin from ear to ear the first time you hear the first ten seconds of it, and as soon as its over you restart it- kinda like my brother Nathan and Disney movies.  Or Thumbelina.  Yeah he was doing that up until last year too!  Okay that's not true.  He was like a toddler.

But ANYWAY.  It makes me want to create my own music.  Badly.  The feeling ebbs and flows, and at times I think I don't even care if no one else heard it, and at times I think I wanna be Bono (which is most of the time) and at times I think I should forget it altogether and grow up and give up on any music blah-blah or radio ga ga.  I guess the opinion about music is sorta like this blog- write it for my own enjoyment, write it to entertain the masses, or shut up and sign off cause no one cares about my idle prattle.

At Last!!!

"I Am Free"- Newsboys

"Freedom"- David Gray

"Freedom"- George Michael

"Free Fallin"- Tom Petty

"Freetime"- Kenna

Hello from beyond the grave.  Or else, finals.  This is my latest playlist.  I'm done with finals.  Freed of the bondage that is school.  With my newfound abundance of time last past week, unable to curb my reckless drive to do as much as possible with every minute of the day, I did some stuff last week that I've been putting off:

-Learned 6 languages

-Achieved Omnipresent Supergalactic Oneness

-Swam the English Channel

-Got a tattoo of the Battle of Little Big Horn

-Wrote and recorded my debut solo album

-Delivered a set of sextuplets on the slopes of Everest

-Designed and built my new house

-Narrowly lost the Tour de France (but punched Lance in the face)

-Drank my weight in vintage Napoleon-era brandy

So we'll see what I can get done this weekend as well.  I think my last entry was right before life started sucking big time.  I had to build a final laser-cut model for Design Studio, which bears the sweat blood and tears of Tiffany and Chris as well.  Here's some photos:

This concludes part one of this blog because its gonna take a long time to catch you up.  I will say that I'm going home for Memorial Day weekend to play in the Trinity High School Varsity-Alumni Game- the last year I'll hafta play AGAINST Nathan...I'll shove my cousin Nick around some to keep him honest though.  Hoping to also see Iron Man and Speed Racer this weekend, and next weekend it'll be Indiana Jones and Narnia.  South Bend is so much cheaper.  

I also have an internship I started this week.  Score!!  Making more than I ever have, computer drafting construction documents all day.  Not bad.

Oh, hi there.

Once again, I plug myself.  Check out my old other blog, which is basically a series of faceless postings ranting about pondering hating on or confused about various subjects and things.

http://csergio.blogspot.com/

Also, from that blog, as I was reading back, is something ASTOUNDING.  

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/uglydog.asp

That blog I mention usually goes something like this, which was again on my mind recently.  Noses.  Consider them for a second.  They suck.  I mean, the best most people can hope for is to NOT have an UGLY nose.  Its not like having beautiful red or blond or curly hair.  Sure, some people have cute noses, but basically most people either have a not ugly nose, or an ugly nose.  I personally think I support nose jobs more so than most plastic surgery simply because so many otherwise attractive people get screwed by having a monstrous or bulbous or crooked or something else schnoz.  I personally toe the line between a prominently Italian nose and just massively dago.  I mean, I feel bad for some people.  Really.

Also, what is the love affair in the creative/art world with wearing black?  Architects/aspiring architects (yeah see lots of those), artists, musicians, theater people, you name it.  I mean every concert you go to, the band has their tour shirt selling in black.  Sure black is a common popular easy to match color, but I mean we're talking black pants black shirt and thick black glasses kinda black here.  What's the flippin deal?  I'm tired of it.  As we like to say about all the alternative/emo/punk kids in Bucktown here in Chicago, you're not so different and rebellious and alternative when every other tool up and down the street on Friday night looks exactly the same as you.  Good quotes I have on Facebook- 

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

-Mark Twain

"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."
-Hannah Arendt

I mean REALLY, do you REALLY feel that individual and artsy and expressive when you look just like everyone else who's trying to do the same thing and apparently not noticing that you are too?  That's why I'm not buying into the thick black glasses architect thing.  Its tired.

LAST.  An interesting thing I've noticed in my field so far is the use of the phrases "sort of" and "kind of".  They've become a kind of analogy, except they don't really precede any actual analogy, just a particular explanation of the way something is that needs special attention.  The phrases get used so much that they're basically one word- kindve, sortof.  Its like when trying to convey something to someone.  Sure, everyone uses these phrases, but architects (and I imagine people in all creative fields) use them like high school girls use "like".  Seriously.  "This building expresses a kindve honesty of construction that is sortof Miesian in that it sortof feigns expressive materiality but actually is kindve hiding the truth behind a sortof mask."  I just made that up but you get the point.

Look Who Else Is Famous

So we went to this cool thing down south of school, where there's like 30 (30!  I figured it would be like 3!) art galleries that have openings once a month.  You get a little map if you want, but basically just walk down one street going in and out in and out.  Lots of little galleries, some big ones, the key of course being that most of them have wine/cheapcheapdisgustingPabstBlueRibbon and also some little munchies/food/chocolate/a bowl of Runts that had amazing tasting Mango Runts (who knew THOSE existed?)/a heaping pile of cheesecake bar squares and cookie bar squares.  In conclusion, SCORE.  

So (are you still with me?- art galleries...) Tiffany came down after work on Friday and met up with me and some archie friends who go to these things every month (for the art of course).  It was fun, grotesque, weird, stupid, cool, ugly, sweet, confusing, disturbing, bizarre, and the other adjectives in between.  But fun.  And one place was taking pictures and posting them online days later for people, for fun.  Hence:

Oops well I guess at least the photographer was professional...

Here's my friends too:

Randi (Alex's roommate), Alex, Jessica, and Kat as the bottom of the uh, four-person, um...pyramid?...thing.

Papa's Famous

Oooooh, check it out, a little something in South Bend to commemorate Papa's service:

Guess who else is famous?  Oh wait he was already anyway.