my summer vacation

this summer, back when the blog backlog (clog) was building up, kim and i went to seattle. we had lots of fun, and planned on writing a really long post with lots of pictures. we almost got around to it, and then we didn't, and then we didn't post anything for several months. for some reason i thought of some of those pictures today, and i'm posting them now without much in the way of explanation, other than to say that the pietsch's, who live in seattle and who we were visiting out there, like to play a little something called "apple baseball" (which is exactly what it sounds like and is exactly as awesome as it sounds), and we also got to play. we also played old bread baseball and watermelon baseball and can of V8 baseball. it was fun and delicious.

the exploding bread is cool, sure, but look at my face. i am very much in the moment right there.







nate not only made a decent cup of apple juice here, he's also showing he's got a swing that means business. that's commitment to apple baseball right there, folks.




caity makes some applesauce.









again with the face. this should be on an atkins diet billboard. "DEATH TO CARBS," it'd say.







ah, summer: friends, sports, and watermelon.








the aftermath. sweet, sweet aftermath.








trevor opens a can of V8 by opening a can of whoopass on a can of V8.







jeremy pietsch is so proud of his work here. "look what i made!!!"









here's some video footage of the carnage.

oh my red:






i'ma make it rain!!!:

wish you were here

as you may recall, my good friend aaron is in town this week to enjoy some chicago summertime fun. i thought since he's here and doesn't have anything better to do i'd have him guest-write about our activities thus far. aaron, take it away!

my name is aaron and i got jeremy's secret password, guarded by several laser beam-emitting guard dogs whose breath releases tiny little tracking devises which eventually shoot spikes that drive straight through your heart if you're not him. needless to say, it was a pretty tough, but i was inspired by the most recent film i saw, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." thanks george lucas. i thought there would be aliens involved at some point in my quest, but jeremy remained unpredictable even in his password defense system. he obviously did not consult mr. lucas. this, however, is not the purpose of my entry. it is, rather, to talk about the current state of affairs in chicago since i am here.

yesterday i arrived just in time to watch the usa v. england soccer match. even though the usa looked poorly outmatched, that did not mean that a person could not have fun in this country. we soon made that fun part of our life with an evening of grilling burgers topped with 7 or 8 different condiments. it felt more like the america i was used to. if there had been a burger- stacking competition with us (jeremy, kim, and i) versus some brits (let's say, tony blair, winston churchill, and king john) i'd say we would make them miss revolutionary war-era america.

anyway, lots of fun is set up for the next 2 days. a concert tonight, a spy game this afternoon (look for me reading suspiciously in a café, jeremy playing his guitar ever so slyly on the corner, and kim strategically yakking on her cell phone). tomorrow we have an ushering gig at some highfalutin theatre. maybe jerm will blog about it later.

-aaron

the end of our endless numbered days

this weekend we took our last trip of this summer, this time to maine, to see my friends chris and tarah get married on the ocean shore. it was pretty much as cool as that sounds--maybe i'll show you some pictures in a minute. and it was a great weekend.

since tomorrow is the start of orientation for med school, kim and i had been planning on getting home and falling gratefully into bed, resting up for the first of many long days. but instead, we opened the door of our apartment and were greeted by the rich aroma of natural gas, so i figured i'd write a blog while we wait for the gas people to come and fix the leak. hey, it's a science experiment--let's see if i write more or less coherently under the influence.

the night of the rehearsal dinner, chris and tarah had me sing a song, which i did at the beach. check out this cool blue atmosphere!






here's the wedding itself. here we see tarah ('s veil), chris, brian the pastor, and tarah's sister ashley and friend megan, who we thought was a pretty great person to know and hang out with. i'm representing for the groom on the other side of the beach, but you just saw a picture of me playing guitar, so i figured you'd be ok not seeing that.

the day after the wedding, chris and tarah and megan and kim and i went whale watching. the boat went fast, which blew our hair back and apparently made me squint my face awkwardly. they say the camera adds ten pounds. and the wind, it adds a good fifteen just to your neck. in pure neck fat.

speaking of fat and all, here's a whale. this is the blue fin whale, which is the second largest of the whales. "whale watching" means riding in a boat for a couple hours and never seeing any more than this much of any whale at any one time. so i'm telling you that this whale is really big, but as i never saw more than this 10 feet of it, i've got to tell you i'm relying a little on extrapolation and a lot on the tour guide, who sounded pretty knowledgeable.

in three-part summary, congratulations chris and tarah; maine is cool; and if i think much about it, i'm a little nervous about tomorrow and the beginning of all that. i'll update you with all that fun soon. in the meantime, i'm gonna go get started on the rest of my life!

overdue update, part 1: adventures with aaron

boy howdy, things have been pretty crazy lately. since getting hitched, kim and i have been racking up the frequent flier miles: trips to colorado springs, california, and nebraska, and this week we're heading to maine to see my friends chris and tarah get married. the day after i get back, med school orientation starts. unfortunately being so busy has meant not having time to update this blog with all the excellent things we've been doing. i think my new year's resolution next year will be seeking that balance: having enough time to write on my blog, but not having so much free time that i never have interesting things to tell about when i write. ah, the zen of the taoist blogger's life. here is a story from recent life...

last weekend my friend aaron came and visited our humble abode so we could all go see sevilla, our hometown team (in spain), play soccer here in chicago. we did, and that was fun, but the next night as we walked around downtown, we came across quite a scene. policemen were running around everywhere, putting up caution tape and herding people along, trying to stop them from taking pictures. we walked a little further on, and saw the burned out body of a crashed helicopter laying on the intersection amongst all the skyscrapers.

we walked a bit further and saw an armored police van, and as we looked closer we saw where someone had shot it several times. we also saw along the side where it said "gotham police department", and then we noticed that all the cars along the street had gotham license plates on them. we had walked right onto the set of the new batman movie while they were still setting up the perimeter tape to keep us out. as we took pictures, some movie people with headsets and walkie talkies ushered us away, but not before kim talked to one of them about being an extra in the movie.

that guy told kim the name of the casting director, so with our taste for movie crashing adventure thus piqued, we walked further along and talked to another official looking person, claiming to be extras and asking where we might find that guy. our use of the name was impressive enough that that official looked us up an address, which made us even more convincing when we got to the next person, asking for an address, a name, and with a plausible movie role. unfortunately, at this point we were back to the people who had first kicked us out, so aaron and i, fearing we'd be recognized (they call it "made" in the business), walked on while kim gained access to the building where the extras go. a security guard there asked for her name, which she supplied, and when he told her she wasn't on the list, she replied "really? i was told to meet (director's name) here at 7:00 with all the extras." so security guard told her where to go, and she made it in where all the extras were waiting to film the movie's big chase scene that night. apparently, there were snacks and assorted free foods, but kim only hung out for a little bit before she left to find us again.

anyway, here's a few other pictures from the weekend:

here's the three of us post-game, after walking from soldier field to the museum campus to enjoy the skyline at night. it's really a very nice skyline--come stay with us and we'll show you!





here's aaron and i enjoying chicago dogs. because i am stuffing my face, you can't tell how happy i am to have found a hot dog eating buddy (kim is apparently biologically or philosophically opposed to "encased meats" as she calls them. see, i told you she's crazy.). plus, these were pretty good dogs.






on saturday we went on an architectural cruise, which was pretty cool. after that (and before batman), we checked out this flamenco show in millennium park. it's a nice view from here, but we mostly watched the show a little closer. like, where you could see what was happening on the stage.


after our batman adventure we grilled out (on my third story fire escape stairway), and had a sing-along time. aaron and i used to play together all the time, so he brought his guitar out with him so we could enjoy that together. hopefully our neighbors enjoyed it as well, even when it got sort of loud singing oh, darling at about 2am. well, we had fun anyway.

across the sea

some of my very best friends live in places very far away from here, so far away you have to cross borders or oceans (or both) to get to them. mostly, this is a pretty bad deal. i haven't seen my very good friend sarah, for example, in more than a year, and since she lives in japan, we don't get to talk very often, either. and when we do talk, it's the end of my day and the beginning of hers, which is just weird--you learn to make it work, but you never really get used to the weirdness of nearly falling asleep while talking to someone who just started her morning work (in this case, teaching english to japanese kids).

but it's not an entirely bad deal. in addition to hearing some fascinating tidbits about japanese culture and japanese elementary school culture, i often get some pretty entertaining excerpts of english according to 5th graders in japan. and as an added bonus, sarah and i have been sending packages to each other in our respective locations (crossing two oceans, including three continents unless i've forgotten one) for the last three years. these two vibrant, wonderful traditions recently came together in a package wishing me a happy thanksgiving, christmas, and easter. included was the work of one young girl, in response to a cultural education project in which the students learned about the american custom of the new year's resolution, and then made their own. what will YOU improve this year?

there'll even be a band.

after a long 8 hour day of training yesterday, i called my friend mitchell, who was in town for the day. we had a pretty exciting plan for the evening--grab a bite to eat, and then go see andrew bird playing a hometown, sold-out, small venue show featuring new material from the album he was about to go on tour to support. there was just one problem, though: we didn't have tickets. so our getting in would require a little extra work.

our first move was to head down to the venue a few hours early and see what might develop. we took the train and then walked to the address and found ourselves in what pretty much seemed to be a shipping yard. mitchell and i began to wonder if perhaps andrew bird was part of an elaborate crime front, and there wasn't really going to be a concert. finally, though, we found the venue, and decided to walk around back to see if anything was happening back there. sure enough, we could hear the sound check through the back door, which had been left open juuuuust a crack. mitchell and i looked at each other, and then headed in. one exploratory turn inside the building found us a foot from the stage and the band, much to our delighted surprise. they looked at us and then went back to work, so we sort of stupidly stood still, staring like dumbfounded cows. this would have been a good time to come up with a plan for the next move, but instead we just watched. so when the sound guy came and asked us what we were doing, all i could manage was a weak mumble about not having tickets and maybe we could watch the soundcheck. sound guy said that'd be up to mr. bird, who made just enough of a motion with his head to indicate that he in fact heard this statement, but without visibly responding in any way to show support or opposition to the idea. so sound guy escorted us out.

as we walked back to the front, we met the bouncer and chatted him up, doing what the corporate (or myspace people) call "networking". as mitchell and i walked away from the venue and talked about various things we might have done or things we might have said and wondered what, exactly, is the etiquette for offering bribes to bouncers. we got some food and decided to go back and try our luck with the bouncer again. at this point i elected mitchell captain of the team on the grounds that i could drive to see the show in indianapolis so i wasn't as invested as him (but secretly because i fear confrontation). we headed back hoping to find the bouncer, but instead met jessica, who booked the show and who told us there was no way we were getting in without a ticket. when mitchell insinuated that perhaps some financial resources might change the situation, jessica responded that if she was even a little bit unethical, she could have received all kinds of favors in exchange for entry to the show. i asked if there was someone more unethical we might talk to, but she said they were all ethical in there. so we started to leave again, but this time we saw our friend the bouncer through the window and waved at him. he smiled and waved (this big black bouncer guy, smiling and waving at us!) and came out. "have you talked to those two?" he asked jessica, but old jessica just would not back down, so we left again.

this time we regrouped in the lumber section at the nearby home depot instead of over italian beef sandwiches in lincoln park, and we decided that if we came back after the doors had opened we might just see the bouncer, who we felt was pulling for us in this matter. so we killed some time, and came back to the venue. the doors were opened, but no one was waiting outside, so we shuffled up to the front door and went in, where the bouncer was waiting to check IDs. he said it was up to jessica, so he called her over again, and mitchell, pulling out our very last unused trump card, said, "here's the deal. we came all the way from nebraska, and we saw that it was sold out, but we thought..." "you did not come from nebraska! show me your driver's licenses!" jessica exclaimed, sort of smiling (it's good to have good-looking friends!), and i knew we were in. we produced our proof of residence (GO 'SKERS!!!), and she asked us how many times we'd seen andrew before, and where. and then she let us in, and mitchell and i paid and got our hands stamped and then found a place to hide in case they changed their mind.

(i'm sure some of you are thinking that technically i didn't come from nebraska to see the show, but like lots of people have probably said at various times throughout history, don't let the facts get in the way of a good scam. so let's leave it at that, eh?)

and then, there was the show. everyone, go see andrew bird if you can--it's an incredible experience, and andrew bird is a rare phenomenon: a gifted songwriter AND a virtuoso performer. he must have played 10 songs from his new album, which i can very confidently say will be AMAZING. and if you don't believe me, ask mitchell. it was really good.