I hate when weekends go by in a blur. Fortunately I did a lot this weekend…too bad it is already over.

Thursday I had my cycling performance test (read post below this one) but I didn’t provide details of the rest of our day. After that we headed to Schaumberg to fulfill Jess’ part of the trip, Ikea. But first we went to the mall to eat some Cheesecake Factory. Excellent! An order of Buffalo Blasts and 75% of an order of chocolate mousse cake later (and a photo of Taco Time for Riz) and then it was off to Ikea. Good deals were to be had as they were remodeling and clearancing out holiday items but all I really bought were batteries and light bulbs. A stop at the outlet mall on the way home (I got a knew coat!) and then we were back just in time to hit some hot tub and check my e-mail. An interesting e-mail from my boss would certainly lead to an interesting Friday. She sent out an e-mail saying we were having a department meeting at 8:30 and to be on time. Weird since we are a very casual department of only 4 people (including the boss) and she’s never sent out e-mails about meetings.

Fears (I really didn’t have any) were alleviated by the box of Krispe Kremes that she brought with. It turns out Dean (one of my best work friends) got promoted/transferred to a new job within the company. The kicker was not only are they not replacing him but my boss was 4 months into a 6 month plan to reduce her staff by one. Thus everything worked out. Unfortunately my responsibilities which increased about 20% at the turn of the year were increased by probably another 40%. So that’s a roughly 60% increase in like 2 months…which job security-wise isn’t bad but this stuff is less interesting than what I do now which isn’t all that interesting on a daily basis. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention the 0% pay increase too…
Friday night was laid back, lots of work talk at home and then some dinner and a Ram upgrade to the computer. Somehow Jess woke on Saturday with a hangover…probably something to do with the decent size and decent strength margarita from Pasquals. Needless to say, Friday night was pretty entertaining. Saturday was the usual routine of basketball, grocery shopping and breakfast. Chili and Popeye decided that while I was gone it would be a good idea to knock a large potted plant off the shelf and spread the dirt around 3 rooms. I can just see Chili parading around the house with a big plant in his mouth while spreading dirt everywhere! Saturday afternoon I was off to Green Bay (with the Riz) to play cards with some High School friends (and randoms.) A stop in Beaver Dam to the Cheese House (with Jake and Laura and Isabela) proved most excellent! Excellent food+cheap prices=happy Mark! Seriously, the largest malt I’ve ever had was $2, a burger was like $1.80 and fried cheese curds for $1.40. Finally in Green Bay (after getting detoured by a nasty accident) we got to play some good games of cards! The finale was Hold Em…I got 4th out of 8 and Riz decided he should win so he did. I could tell all my friends are old and married now, on the table at one point were 8 drinks. 5 of them were diet sodas, one was a Code Red Mt Dew (mine) and two beers. Old. Anyways, a couple of crunchwraps on the way home and we were good to go! Did you know that the Crunchwrap Supreme was originally tested in the Detroit area? I saw it in 2004 when I was there…it reemerged nationally in June of 2005 and now is back again starting a couple weeks ago. On the Taco Bell website you can make your own Crunchwrap gear! Cool!

Anyways, Sunday I slept in a bit. We read the paper a little later and Jess finally found a laptop to buy and she bought it. Toshiba! It is a sweet deal…we just want to upgrade the memory and get our house wireless! The rest of the day was spent preparing for the Super Bowl. Lots of people, lots of food! It was a most excellent time! I hope everyone who stopped by had a great time! Now it is Monday morning, back to work! I wonder what Shiroma is doing right now?