Chance's Weekend Update: 8/9/2009

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying."
-Woody Allen

Happy Monday. Really. This past weekend was a nice reprieve for me, I slept in, didn't paint anything, didn't cut the grass, didn't spend any money, or even host a party. On top of that--I read the entire paper. Cover to cover--even the crap I don't like. Why? I don't know. Carpe Diem. Enough of that though, what have you all been up to? As I came to discover over time, my favorite part of this whole weekend update thing isn't so much clicking around for interesting things on the internet, or adding my two cents here and there--it is the one or two sentence emails that I get back from people now and then--or sometimes the paragraphs that I get back when I write something political... As you may have gathered from my little introduction, I am old now, and unless I am really on my game and manage to fight off all of the "real life" distractions...I never get around to my hobbies, but now that I am well rested ,I hope that some of what I found today will make your Monday feel as refreshing as my weekend has been. Anyways, Here it is:

Some Things that Don't Suck:

Free Groceries?!?!, This is no too good to be true scam…One of the guys that I work with was telling me about how his wife has gotten crazy into coupons and regularly brings home hundreds of dollars worth of food for almost nothing. She has gotten good to the point that she keeps a blog about it to share her deals with other cash conscious moms out there. When you get into it you might wonder how the hell this all works—the details are here…but in a nutshell you break your purchase up into several transactions, the computer gives you "credit" for the full retail price of items and spits out all of those coupons offered from the manufacturers (not the store) with the receipts even though you have used store coupons you have to make your transaction cost almost nothing. You then save those "Catalina" coupons for more of these "shopping" trips. At the end of the day you too might have over 100 ½ pints of Ice Cream in your freezer for free.

The Green War, Maybe I am just a little ahead of the curve on some things, but earlier this year before the whole 'Cash for Clunkers' hand-out campaign I destroyed my own clunker and then traded up for a hybrid. Since that time my older sister got the new Volkswagen TDI--which gets better gas mileage than my car even when you don't drive like a grandma (which I do now)--and she points that out frequently. I tried to even the environmental scorecard by getting an electric lawnmower, and turning down the A/C...but she has a no lawn and an apartment that she can cool by holding an ice cube in front of a fan...damn. Luckily Caterpillar has stepped up into my corner and come out with the ultimate hybrid: D7E Hybrid Bulldozer...Way tougher than your car Jessica, and while I do not own one, I drive my car to the company that makes it. Chance 1 - Jessica 0.

Folding Paratrooper Bike, Watching the Tour De France every year gets me all hyped up about bikes...I usually start by obsessing over the lightest and most high-tech ones, then go into the whole utility debate until I finally talk myself out of getting one...This one nearly put me over the edge though--it is thrown out of a plane, unfolded, and then ready for action in seconds. Nice.

The best thing to happen to running since legs, Runner's Chance--my new multivitamin. no joke. After I was having some trouble finding a vitamin that fit all of my needs, it took about 8 months and a lot of help from several companies, some family, a few friends, a lawyer, and a cpa to bring me over the hump and take my idea of a product from a page in my notebook to a giant stack of boxes in my guest bedroom...and most recently into nice little arrangements on running store shelves all across Illinois and Missouri. In addition to saving you from my sales pitch (you can check the website for that) I will save you some money if you want to give them a whirl. Use the coupon code: "update" during checkout. Next year when Runner's Chance buys Berkshire Hathaway I will send everyone who buys a bottle of my first batch a giant dividend check--just food for thought.

The Go-Plate, "The Man" is always trying to kill our productivity by penalizing multi-tasking. Don't run with scissors, no texting while driving, only have one wife. But not anymore! With the Go-Plate you can hold your drink and your plate IN ONE HAND...which will really open up your options at the next backyard BBQ.

A real-time marathon video game, at the time (1984) somebody thought this was a real sweet idea. Then it failed miserably and was somehow resurrected recently on the world-famous letsrun.com message boards. In this came you alternate pressing the right and left arrow on your keyboard to control the legs of your runner...each click=one step...for an entire marathon, but not with your legs--with your fingers. And not good for your health--bad for your job security, because it will take you at least two hours and you probably wont be able to write for the rest of the week.

Kara Goucher, formerly University of Colorado and current Oregon Track Club standout got 2nd place at the Boston Marathon in April and recently won the Rock and Roll Chicago Half-Marathon...beating all of the men along the way. She is running the Marathon in Berlin at the World Championships in two weeks and probably has the best shot of any American at bringing home some hardware.

Some Things that Do:

Kara Goucher kicking your ass (my ass specifically).

Olympic Committee insider to profit huge off of Chicago 2016...No way; how could this possibly happen in the most corrupt city in one of the most corrupt states in the union? Let me guess...he went to U of I! Oh yeah, and Mayor Daley flipped out on a reporter when asked about it.

New 25-year high!!!...the Illinois Unemployment Rate. Well the sentence started off well enough, unfortunately for a ton of people there isn't a whole lot of light at the end of the tunnel yet.

No more Sear's Tower, I am a fan of tradition, and even though I think all of the $350 Million dollars in upgrades to the Tower are very exciting and I (like a lot of people) am pretty pumped to go see it, I believe that changing the name to "Willis Tower" is ridiculous. Next on the chopping block is clearly Wrigley Field, and before long everyone will want to go downtown to "Toyota, IL".

Until Next Time,
Chance