Spirit of Love

"You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love." - Henry Drummond

Companies

I saw an alphabetical list on someone's blog and decided to write down an alphabetical list of all the names of the companies I've worked for. I used all the letters except six - J, L, V, X, Y, & Z.

A - Acxiom, A.S.I. Security, American Express
B - Border's
C - Callaghan & Son's Construction, Coldwell Banker
D - Daniels, Hancock & Faris, Dominick's Finer Foods, Dean Witter
E - Equifax, Everen Securities
F - First Union Securities
G - G & S Masonry, GE Financial
H - H & R Block, Hamilton Investments, Household Bank
I - I.D.S., Insure.com
J -
K - Korvettes, Kemper Financial Securities
L - Lifequotes, Inc.
M - Marshall Field's, Mark Shale, Merrill Lynch, Motorola, May & Speh
N - Northern Trust
O - Osman Construction, Oak Leaf Construction
P - Paine Webber, Prescott, Ball & Turben, Principal Financial
Q - Quotesmith
R - Ryder/PIE
S - Sears, Securitas
T - Thorsen Realtors, Ten Thousand Horses, Terra Financial
U - University Of Illinois
V -
W - Warner Lambert, Willie's Pizza, Wachovia Securities, Wackenhut
X -
Y -
Z -

Amazing.

Sears Archives Site

SEARS ARCHIVES

Once again, Sears has made history. For the first time, Sears has opened the doors to its vast archival collection and invited the public to peek inside. More than 100 years of stories, product and brand histories, photographs, catalog images are now available online.

Work

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." - Confucius

Tournament

My oldest son played in the St. Dominic's basketball tournament over the past three days. They came in third and got another trophy for their school. The competition was pretty tough but they played aggressively. Today is my cousin Rick's birthday. It's funny how you remember certain people's birthdays. Growing up we spent a lot of time with our cousins. I have a lot of cousins. My Mom and Dad were both from big families that produced a lot of kids. It was great at the holidays getting together with all the cousins. There was always enough of us for baseball and football games. If it wasn't for my older cousins I don't think I would have been into sports. My Dad wasn't really an athlete and was always working. It took a while but my boys are finally getting interested in sports and both play basketball and football. I watched a little of the Bulls game tonight. They are playing better than last year and actually winning some games. They had a four game winning streak their first since 1998. That's a long time ago. All the news is about the tsunami. What a catastrophe. The death toll is up to 55,000. The devastation is unbelievable. It beyond comprehension. It makes a person appreciate each waking moment and all the blessings we have. I found this in a blog showing the 10 largest earthquakes:
USGS Earthquake Hazards Program: Largest Earthquakes in the World:
"Location Date UTC Magnitude Coordinates"
1. Chile 1960 05 22 9.5 38.24 S 73.05 W
2. Prince William Sound, Alaska 1964 03 28 9.2 61.02 N 147.65 W
3. Andreanof Islands, Alaska 1957 03 09 9.1 51.56 N 175.39 W
4. Kamchatka 1952 11 04 9.0 52.76 N 160.06 E
5. Off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra 2004 12 26 9.0 3.30 N 95.78 E
6. Off the Coast of Ecuador 1906 01 31 8.8 1.0 N 81.5 W
7. Rat Islands, Alaska 1965 02 04 8.7 51.21 N 178.50 E
8. Assam - Tibet 1950 08 15 8.6 28.5 N 96.5 E
9. Kamchatka 1923 02 03 8.5 54.0 N 161.0 E
10. Banda Sea, Indonesia 1938 02 01 8.5 5.05 S 131.62 E11. Kuril Islands"

Tomorrow I'm using up my last personal day. I still have two vacation days left that I didn't use. When I came back to work today after a wonderful four day weekend I had over 330 e-mails. I got somewhat caught up. One more workday left in the year.

Calendar Fact

One out of 15 Americans don't know the order of the months.

2004

I did a quick search to get a recap of things that happened in 2004 and found this on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004#Events It's arranged so you can click into the different events or subjects. The Sunday Chicago Tribune Magazine www.chicago.tribune.com also had a feature on the year in pictures. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of these recaps in the next week. It's amazing how quick the year went. I'm looking forward to 2005. I have to pick up a new Week-At-A-Glance calender book at OfficeMax www.officemax.com . I've been buying one since I was an investment consultant to help me keep track of everything. It's not as full as it use to be. Now that I'm doing a blog it may become obsolete. I like flipping through them at the end and beginning of each year to see what happened and when. It gives me some sense of accomplishment. I did that? Amazing. I still have my dayplanners from college. I use to staple ticket stubs in them when I went to movies, a concert or sporting event. It's a great keepsake and memory jogger. I use to write quotes on some of the dates. Each year I try to read at least 26 books or one every two weeks. Keeping track in the calendar book keeps me from re-reading something I've already read. There's too many books I haven't read to be doing that. The same with movies. There's too many movies I haven't seen. I was always a big believer in goals.

Boxing Day

Today is Boxing Day in Canada and the United Kingdom. We have a lot of boxes lying on the living room floor from Christmas. There's a whole cabinet of boxes in the garage that we reuse each year. Our crawlspace has lots of boxes that we can reuse if we ever move. I bring home paper boxes every chance I get from work. You could say I have a box collection. We started buying those plastic containers to put everything in. Permanent boxes. It doesn't matter I'm still not organized. Oh well. That's my commentary on Boxing Day.

Boy did I eat a lot this weekend. None of my Christmas clothes are gonna fit except the socks. Between my sister's get together on Christmas Eve and my brother's on Christmas evening I'm stuffed. I finished reading Phil Jackson's book about the Los Angeles Lakers " The Last Season - A Team In Search Of It's Soul" I'm not sure what I'm gonna read next. I'm a few pages into Tom Brokaw's - "The Greatest Generation." I checked out "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown. I don't know if I'll get to it. I have to start planning for next year and what I hope to accomplish. I really didn't meet my two goals for last year. I'll have to put them on top of the list for this year. One thing I do want to try and do is post something on my blog everyday even if it's just a quote or some random thoughts. It will be nice to look back on next year.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone and anyone who reads this. This is my 3 month blogiversary. My first post was September 25th. I haven't blogged everyday. I've tried to blog every weekend. I posted a total of 30 times so far. Next year I'm gonna try for everyday if the computer gods allow it. It's been an interesting experience. I've gotten a lot of great ideas from other blogs. There's still some tricks I need to learn. I've started to tell people about my blog. I haven't directed anybody to it yet. I gotta add a counter to see how many people are checking it out. Nobody has commented on any of the posts. I wonder how many new blogs have started since mine. I read some of my past posts and it's interesting looking back. There's things I've posted that I've actually forgot until I read about them again. They seem so long ago. I'm listening to Christmas music on WNUA and I finished eating a whole bag of peanut M&Ms.

After 5:30 Mass at St. Alexander's our old parish in Villa Park we went to my sister's and brother-in-law's. She made beef and I ate too much as I usually do when we go there. We stayed until 10:00 p.m. When we got home "Santa" came and put the gifts under the tree. We got to sleep about 12:30 p.m. When I woke up it had snowed so we had a white Christmas. The boys were up early. My wife told them not to wake us up until 8:00 a.m. They had all the gifts sorted and were anxious to open them up. They both said they had an excellent Christmas. After we finished opening presents I made everyone breakfast, eggs, omelets and sausage links. When breakfast was all cleaned up I then settled down for a long winter nap. I love those long winter naps. The boys played video games until it was time to go to Grandma's. After Grandma's its over to my brother and sister-in-laws for dessert. It's been a very good Christmas.

Merry Christmas from Around the World

African/ Eritrean/ Tigrinja: Rehus-Beal-Ledeats
Arabic: Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah
Argentine: Feliz Navidad
Armenian: Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand
Chinese: (Cantonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun
Chinese: (Mandarin) Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan
Czech: Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok
Danish: Glædelig Jul
French: Joyeux Noel
Greek: Kala Christouyenna!
Hawaiian: Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou!
Hebrew: Mo'adim Lesimkha. Chena tova
Hindi: Shub Naya Baras
Hungarian: Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket
Icelandic: Gledileg Jol
Indonesian: Selamat Hari Natal
Iraqi: Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah
Irish: Nollaig Shona Dhuit, or Nodlaig mhaith chugnat
Italian: Buone Feste Natalizie
Japanese: Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
Korean: Sung Tan Chuk Ha
Latin: Natale hilare et Annum Faustum!
Peru: Feliz Navidad y un Venturoso Año Nuevo
Philipines: Maligayan Pasko!
Polish: Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia or Boze Narodzenie
Portuguese:Feliz Natal
Spanish: Feliz Navidad
Swedish: God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År
Thai: Sawadee Pee Mai
Turkish: Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
Ukrainian: Srozhdestvom Kristovym

Christmas Eve Eve

It's the day before Christmas Eve. I'm actually more excited about today than I think I will be about tomorrow. No work tomorrow and I get to sleep late. Today was pretty easy knowing that I'll have along weekend. Yesterday our team leader took us to lunch at La Mex. I had the combination fajitas. I ordered a large mushroom and cheese pizza from Rosati's for lunch today. I usually get a slice on Fridays but since I don't work tomorrow I got a whole pizza for the boys and me. We watched "The Lord of The Rings- Fellowship Of The Ring." It was very good. It was probably great on the big screen. The scenery was beautiful. Last night we watched "Hidalgo." The same guy was in both movies - Viggo Mortensen. I might have to read the books. I finished reading "Sacred Hoops" by Phil Jackson and was able to get his new book "The Last Season - A Team In Search Of Its Soul" He has the best winning record in NBA history 832-316 amazing. That's the thing about reading it leads you on new paths to other books and other things to read. I may actually pick up more biographies next year and I'm on a basketball book kick now that I'm coaching. I have "The Winner Within" autographed first edition by Pat Riley that I may have to read next. I also have a book about 'Michael Jordan and the world he made' a first edition of "Playing For Keeps" by David Halberstam. I've never read any of his books but I've met him twice and have other books autographed by him. Looking forward to Christmas Eve at my sisters and then Christmas morning with the boys opening their gifts.

Two Posts In One Day

This is a first, my second post on the same day. When I blog surf I see all these people who blog all day long at different times. I suppose if I had a laptop which I don't, I could do that. The work days are really busy and I just don't have the time - "the days are just packed." Where have I heard that before? One of my posts had that title. It doesn't look like anyone is reading my blog by the comments. That's okay it's really just a place for me to capture my thoughts and reminisce - "to recall past things which have happened." It's also a good way for me to keep track of the books I've read, movies I've seen, places I've been, things I've done. It has to be stuff that would be okay for my wife and mother to read in case they do. I can't wait until I can figure out how to post pictures. There's piles of pictures I'd like to archive. There's also a booklist I'd like to put together and a movie list. I also saw a map by someone of all the states he's been to. Plenty of ideas and projects for the new year. I actually look forward to posting on my blog even though I never know what I'm gonna write. I've even thought of setting up a separate dream blog. I have the most vivid, lifelike dreams. I think that's why I love napping and sleeping. It's my form of meditation, relaxation. I might even read about Zen next year. I'm looking forward to 2005. I have no complaints 2004 has been a wonderful year.

Thirteen

My oldest son turns thirteen tomorrow, a teenager. After a half day of school he had about 15 of his classmates over for a birthday get together. His Mom put out a nice spread of appetizers and made some punch. It was still nice enough for them to spend some time outside and a nice way to start his Christmas break. His Grandma, Aunt and Cousin came over about 4:00 p.m. At 7:00 p.m. both boys had basketball practice at different schools. After practice there were more birthday festivities until almost midnight. It was great sleeping in this morning. It's getting cold and starting to snow. Tomorrow it's suppose to be really cold with the high only 20 degrees. While eating breakfast I watched our backyard squirrel munch on our Halloween pumpkin. I put it in the backyard on the patio for him to eat and he's feasting. His little mouth really moves fast when he's chomping on those pumpkin seeds. He sticks his head all the way in to get more. Last week I finished reading "The Traveler's Gift" by Andy Andrews. Right now I'm reading "Sacred Hoops" by Phil Jackson the former Chicago Bull's coach. I've postponed my exam until the end of January so I don't get stressed out for the holidays. It's helped. My youngest son has a basketball game tomorrow afternoon at 5:00 p.m. so I probably won't blog tomorrow. I'm gonna try and blog everyday next year - yeah right.

John Kennedy Toole's Birthday

John Kennedy Toole was born December 17, 1937 - died March 26, 1969 was an American novelist, from New Orleans, Louisiana, best known for his novel "A Confederacy of Dunces." Toole received a master's degree at Columbia University, and then spent a year as assistant professor of English at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He then went to New York to take a teaching position at Hunter College. Toole also spent some time pursuing a doctorate at Columbia, but did not finish because he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961, where he served two years in Puerto Rico teaching English to Spanish-speaking recruits. After his time in the military, Toole returned to New Orleans to live with his parents and began to teach at Dominican College. He spent time hanging around the French Quarter with musicians and, on at least one occasion, helped a musician friend with his second job selling tamales from a cart. After Toole graduated with honors from Tulane University, he worked briefly in a men's clothing factory. Both of these scenarios played a part in the inspiration for his great comic novel "A Confederacy of Dunces." Toole sent his novel's manuscript to Simon and Schuster. After initial excitement about the book, the publisher eventually rejected it, saying that the book "isn't really about anything." Toole began to deteriorate rapidly after he lost hope of publishing his book, which he considered to be a masterpiece. He began to drink heavily and started taking medication for headaches; he also stopped teaching at Dominican and quit his doctoral classes at Tulane. Toole committed suicide on March 26, 1969, by putting one end of a garden hose into the exhaust pipe of his car and the other into the window of the car where he was sitting. After his death, Toole's mother insisted that author Walker Percy read the manuscript for Dunces. Percy eventually gave in and fell in love with the book. "A Confederacy of Dunces" was published in 1980, and Percy provided the foreword. Toole, and his novel, posthumously won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The book has sold more than 1.5 million copies in 18 languages. Toole's only other novel is "The Neon Bible," which Toole wrote at age 16 and which he considered too juvenile a writing attempt to submit for publication while he was alive. Due to the great interest in Toole, "The Neon Bible" was published in 1989.

"Confederacy of Dunces" is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

When A True Genius Appears

"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." - Jonathan Swift

First Basket

My youngest son scored his first basket today. They got clobbered 32 to 11 but it was great to see him finally get some points. My oldest son's team clobbered the team they played 19 to 2. He had some nice rebounds and played most of the game. Most of my family came to watch. It was a busy day. Mass at 10:00 a.m. The first game was at 1:00 p.m. in Lombard at St. Pius and the second at 4:00 p.m. in Wheaton at St. Francis. We killed some time driving to Wheaton looking for an Ulta store. We finally found one at Danada in Wheaton http://www.ewheaton.com/explore/explore_shop.html Then the boys had hot fudge sundaes at McDonald's http://www.mcdonalds.com/usa.html . We saw a car that got crushed by a tree. It was really windy today and it looked like the tree blew over onto the car. Yikes. I've finished going through the Sunday paper. Just the ads are left. I can't believe it's almost Christmas. This Friday we're having a birthday get together for my son he will be 13, a teenager. He's also having a bunch of friends over during the day. They only have a half day of school and then their Christmas break begins. There was a bad fire in Chicago on Monday night at the 135 South LaSalle Building that houses the corporate headquarters of LaSalle National Bank http://www.lasallebank.com/ . I was getting ready to watch Monday Night Football http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?page=/MNFtelevision and all the network stations were covering the fire. I was real familiar with the building. I use to go to a restaurant on the building's main floor when I worked downtown. I once worked nearby at 50 S. LaSalle Street for The Northern Trust http://www.ntrs.com/ , at 35 North LaSalle on the 30th floor for Paine Webber http://financialservicesinc.ubs.com/Home and at 230 West Monroe on the 28th floor for Prescott, Ball & Turben. The fire was on the 29th and 30th floor. I could relate. I couldn't blog yesterday because of computer problems. It takes me a while to get through all my Yahoo e-mail. I usually check it all on Saturday. I can't believe the spam, what a nuisance, sometimes 300 to 500 spam e-mails. It's really hitting my work computer also. I've been tallying them when I log in in the morning. Thank goodness for bulk delete. I still have to scan through them to make sure nothing else isn't mixed in. I finished reading Bob Greene's "The 50 Year Dash." http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385486677/qid=1102908991/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1601561-7049433?v=glance&s=books It was nostalgic. I should probably read it again when I'm actually 50. I started reading "The Traveler's Gift" by Andy Andrews http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0785264280/qid=1102909065/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-1601561-7049433 . I saw a guy at work with it and it sounded a lot like "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" by Mitch Albom http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786868716/qid=1102909126/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-1601561-7049433 . I enjoy inspirational books. I turned my one son onto Og Mandino. He had to read a sports book for school and I had an autographed copy of "The Twelfth Angel." http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0449911500/qid=1102909161/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-1601561-7049433 He said he really liked it. I hope they develop a passion for reading like I have.

Internet Movie Database

I spent hours on the Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com/ looking up movies and people in movies. I set up my movie list with over 300 movies that I've seen and I'm not done yet. Like books I love movies. If I didn't have to work I think I would watch movies, surf the internet and read books all day. The Chicago Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings. Their new quarterback had a great day and their defense shut down the Vikings. My oldest son's team won their basketball game 14 to 12. Next week should be a really busy week with their practices.
I finished the Sunday Chicago Tribune and now I'm going through all the Christmas ads. I still have a bunch of other stuff I want to go through to and time is running out. Where does the day go? Back to work tomorrow bright and early.

Windows XP

I had a heck of time getting into my computer at work today. They just changed our operating system to Windows XP http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/default.mspx and I was locked out of everything. The Help Desk was able to get me into everything I needed to get into but things are still screwed up. I lost all my favorites I had stored on the old system. Thank goodness alot of them are saved in My Yahoo. I'm slowly recreating them on my work computer. What a pain. Modern technology. I guess it still beats just sitting here. I like the idea of being able to surf the internet for 8 hours and get paid for it. My youngest son had his first basketball game today. They lost 14 to 3. They really played well against a team of giants. One kid could just stand and shoot it in without jumping because he was taller than everyone else. The family spent the day at Grandma's watching our little niece. We watched "Office Space" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/ again last night. I've seen it three times now. It's a classic. Work sucks. I bet there is a lot of people out there working in cubicles who can relate to it. I really contemplating postponing my test until after the holidays. Talk about procrastinating. I just can't get motivated even though its worth $1,000.00 if I pass. Too many distractions like this blog.