Every Spring in Chicago the homeless people start to appear in large numbers. The winters are awful, but they're peaceful and the homeless disappear for a while along with all of the tourists. But it's May and a little warmer and already I've had several run-ins with drunken homeless bastards. They're seriously pissing me off. At one of the towers that I work at, the homeless like to set up a camp under the interstate and harrass the shit out of us workers when we park our cars near their area. Well, I'm sorry you homeless fucker, but this is my fucking parking spot and I've got to go to work. Go drink your fucking beer and shout at people eslewhere! And no I don't have any fucking cigarettes to give you! And no I'm not going to pay you to watch my fucking car! We recently had a camera installed at work that points at our cars and rotates 360 degrees so that we can monitor them since the homeless often fuck with our vehicles. A couple of weeks ago I was working up in the tower and I started hearing loud whistling and popping noises. I swivled the camera aound and caught a homeless guy smoking a joint and lighting off bottle rockets and firing them up at the tower while tossing beer cans over the fence towards my car. I called the police but nothing was done. I couldn't leave the tower to confront him because I can't leave moving trains unattended. Yesterday, while walking down Michigan Avenue with Myriam and her mom, we stopped to look up at some building or something and I heard a mumbling and angry sounding voice coming towards me while we were all staring up into the sky. I looked behind me and saw some drunken homeless fucker coming at me with his fist clinched and cocked back as if he were going to take a swing at me. Instinctively my first reaction was to push Myriam and her mom along and out of the way of this approaching angry drunken bum. He was staring me right in the eye and saying something that I couldn't understand but it was obviously very threatening shit. I wanted to lay him out so fucking bad but rather than cause a scene I just walked off. Seriously, he was so drunk that I could have just simply pushed him down and he probably would have blacked out. Everyday when walking down Diversey to go to my gym I get asked for money on an average of about 3 or 4 times per day. And they don't take no for an answer. They always have something smart to say and sometimes even follow me for a bit until I stop and yell "no" a second time to them. But today, however, today was the breaking point. I was in the laundry mat, minding my own business, when a homeless guy that I've seen around the place several times before who I've seen on a few occasions come in and just shout "fuck you" at the people doing laundry, this guy walked by today and stuck his head in the door and tossed his empty beer can right into my damned laundry basket! I grabbed the beer can and ran out the door with it and threw it back at him as hard as I could. Luckily, the owner happened to be there collecting money out of the machines today and he ran out with me and yelled at the bum and threatened calling the police, etc. So, the owner of the place apologized to me and offered to let me re-wash all of my clothes for free, which I did, even though I didn't notice any spilt beer on them. Now I certainly feel sorry for some homeless people and I believe that they really do need help, but I rarely see them. Most of the homeless around here are just cocky fucking drunks who decided to stop taking their medication and ended up on the street because of it. There are free programs out there to help you get your ass off of the street, but these assholes would rather roam around fucking with the public instead. I'm fucking sick of them all.

Recently a friend of mine who is a radio dj back home emailed me and said that he was going to be giving a "career day" talk to a class at my old High School. He even named the teacher and it happened to be my old Algebra teacher who appears to still be teaching the same class some 17 yeas later. She was very strict and would yell at you if stared out the window for a few seconds when I was her student.

So I asked him how it went the next day and he said, "every kid had a computer at their desk and they pretty much watched Youtube videos the entire time that I was talking to them." I asked him if the teacher was present and he said that yes she was there but she didn't say anything to the kids while they were doing this.

Man, how amazingly different it must be to be a kid these days. You have every little thing you need right there on the internet and you have access to it at school all day long at your desk and I guess that teachers are somewhat more hesitant these days to discipline a kid for fear of being reported or god forbid some sort of retaliation.

I used to stay up late watching Headbangers Ball when I was a kid just hoping to catch a certain video that I hadn't seen in a long time. Now, kids can just pull up whatever video they want to on Youtube and watch it over and over. The thrill of building a tape or cd collection is completely lost to digital files now. Gone are the days of waiting for an album to be released. If you search hard enough you can find a song onlline before the band has even left the studio. There's no more use for a library when all the research you need is online. What's the point in even attending classes? Will there be a time in the future when teachers just start putting up lectures on Youtube?

What is there for kids to do for fun or exploration now besides video games and Youtube? I've spent time myself fooling around bored on Youtube and come accross videos that kids have filmed on their phones of other kids fighting at school or smoking pot in back of the school, etc. Is that all there is left for kids to do now? Film stupid shit and post it online and see what kind of comments their video will get? Is that what it's like to be in high school now? You just go to school and surf the net all day?

My moods are affected by the weather more than most people. I grew up in South Louisiana where it's as humid as a jungle most of the year and hot enough for bugs to breed year round. It depressd me. I spent four years in San Diego where the weather was pretty much perfect for the entire four years and I loved it and was happy most of the time but I just couldn't afford to live there. I lived in Seattle for a year where it didn't rain as much as people say it does, but it was grey all of the time. I lived in Orlando for a year and not only was it hot and humid as hell there, but there were daily violent thunderstorms to go along with it. Now I live in Chicago where it's either hot as hell or cold as hell. Currently, I'm stuck with nothing to do because there is a foot of snow on the ground and my car just won't make it out of the alley, and if I do, I'm limited to only going places that have a plowed parking area, which really doesn't exist in Chicago. Seems like just a month ago I was bitching about how hot it was here and how I coudn't get my apartment to cool down enough to get to sleep, and now I'm bitching about it being too cold or snowy. Chicago is a city of extremes when it comes to the weather. It's either too hot or too cold for me. Spring and Fall don't hang around very long here. My point is that everywhere I've ever lived, besides San Diego, I've pretty much complained or had negative reactions to the weather almost every day. I'm beginning to wonder if it's what's making me seem depressed all of the time. People are always asking me what's wrong or trying to pry an answer out of me as to why I seem upset about something or whatever, but man I honestly think that most of the time I'm just uncomfortable with the damned weather. Seems stupid but I wasted an entire day off today just sitting in my apartment feeling pissed about the weather outside and not going out and doing anything. Extreme heat and extreme cold make me feel trapped and wanting to do nothing more than sit inside doing nothing. Rain gives me headaches and fucks with my sinuses. I don't think that I can take more than maybe a couple of more years in Chicago. I could never live in Louisiana again. I've done the whole west coast thing. I don't care much for the East coast. Where in the hell can I possibly move to that I'm not going to bitch about the weather everyday? I hear Arizona gets pretty hot but can it really be all that bad without the humidity that the south gets? Any ideas? Colorado?

Negative 4 degrees this morning and the high today was only 4 degrees. The wind chill is WELL below zero. Walking to my car was like the fucking death march. Jesus Christ. And these idiots are going to sit exposed to it for 3 hours tomorrow in Green Bay to watch the Packers and the Giants. Unbelievable.

I'm having a really hard time throwing away my old television. I got a new tv from my dad for Christmas. My previous tv has been my tv for the past 12 years. It's been my only tv. I got it when I started college and dragged it around with me to every apartment, city, state, storage room, building, roommate's house, etc. that I've lived in since then. I've never owned another tv. I've thrown beer cans at it, stayed up late watching movies with friends with it, dropped it a few times, had stuff spilled all over it, it's survived parties, etc. etc. We've had some times. It always kept on ticking. Eventually technology passed it up in the last couple of years and the picture began to look like shit. I had to whack it on the side all of the time to get somewhat of a clear picture. I think that my dad got tired of doing this when he came to visit me last time, so he decided that I would be getting a new tv for Christmas. So, as I unplugged the old tv for the very last time I got hit with a jolt of sadness. I sat and reflected on all of the times we've had together, my old tv and I. After all those years of loyal service, good times and bad, my old tv has become part of my life. Turning that tv off for the last time was almost as sad as when I watched my truck that I had driven for 13 years be towed off to the junk yard. All of those memories just towed away right in front of me. I'm happy as hell to have the new fancy flat screen tv, but it's just not my old tv. I miss it already. The old tv is broken though. It was dying. It's not worth doing anything with. But it's just sitting here in the corner now and I can't bring myself to carry it down to the dumpster.

I sware if I ever manage to ever own my own place, the first damned thing that I'm going to do is weld the damned flushing handle/lever to the fucking rod that it attatches to inside of the back of the toilet. Every apartment that I've ever lived in, and it's A LOT of them, I've had the same damned problem with the handle coming off of the toilet about once a week when I go to flush it. It usually happens when I'm taking that piss in the middle of the night and I'm too tired or still half asleep to deal with it. It also often happens to guests when they go to flush the toilet. Like I said, it's not just in my current place, it's happened forever, in every apartment that I've ever lived in! This never happened when I was a kid, living in a house with my parents, it still never happens at their houses, nor does it happen at friends houses or condos. But it continually happens in apartments. I've had roommates in the past that would use the toilet and then have the lever come off when attempting to flush, so they just fucking left it like it was, unflushed, until someone like myself came along with the knowledge of how to remove the lid on back of the toilet and put the lever back on and flush it. I'm so fucking sick of this problem. Does anyone else have this detachable flushing lever problem? What have you done to stop it from happening? I've pulled out tools and tightened the fuck out of it, etc. and calling the land lord never helps.

Holy shit, I was driving home from the gym today and flipping through all of the crappy Chicago radio stations and I landed on an R&B station playing Back that Ass Up by Juvenile. I'm not lying, I was hit with a strong ass current of something, a strong memory, smell, taste of the Jack and Coke, vibe, of the Varsity in Baton Rouge. I almost had to pull over because I was having such a strong flashback to being at a Retro at the Varsity. Holy crap. I think they still have Retro's at the Varsity in BR.

I don't know about the weather where the rest of you all live, but it's been storming violently in Chicago for the past week and there's more on the way. Last night was the worst. Trees were knocked down everywhere and power was out for over 300,000 people including myself all night. This tree in the picture above snapped last night and fell right on top of a few cars. They've cleaned it up mostly in the pic. The view from my window has now completely changed without this tree being there anymore. I can't get used to the fact that I can now see the building across from my place that was once blocked by the tree. I hate this time of year. It seems like no matter where you live, August is just a month of bad weather and heat.

Growing up in Baton Rouge there were three big things that I remember. LSU, the Chemical Plants, and Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. My parents were not much into church, but they sent me to Catholic schools up until 9th grade. I always thought that religion was a bunch of crap because of the way the the nuns and priest treated us kids in school. They hated us. I went to Redemtorist Jr. High and High School until I was later transfered to Zachary due to my parent's divorce. Anyway, I remember a time when I was struggling with wether or not to believe god. I was always hearing about men in our church that were getting divorced because of cheating on their wives, etc. even though they were prominate members of the catholic church, etc. Suddenly these men that were always doing the readings at mass, etc. would just dissappear. Not to get into a big religious discussion or anything, but I eventually chose not to believe for many reasons, but I can clearly recall this one time when I was about 14 years old, driving down Essen Lane by Jimmy Swaggart ministries, around the time that he had been busted for his second time with a prostitute but forgiven by God and his people, and someone had tagged the front of his building with the words, "JE$U$ $AVE$" with dollar signs. I laughed my ass off and my parents told me that it was not funny. I have no idea why I posted this memory, but the recent shit with David Vitter getting busted with the DC and New Orleans madams made me remember this. Vitter says that everything is ok now because he talked with God and has been forgiven. I guess I can go and cheat and have sex with prostitutes and everything will be ok as long as I go to church when I get caught and ask for forgiveness.

I'm 33 and have been a size 32 and eaten whatever the hell I want since I was 18. All of a sudden I am growing a belly. I haven't changed anything in my diet or physical activity. What in the hell is going on? My jeans don't fit. I've weighed 173 pounds for the past 16 years. I weighed myself at the gym the other day because I've noticed my stomach getting bigger and son of a bitch if I didn't weigh 182 pounds. What the hell? Is this happening to anyone else?

I had the day off today so I decided to brave the cold ass frozen air and head downtown for some Christmas shopping. The Chicago winters do something to people that just makes for an entertaining day sometimes. I got on the train and right away some guy that was a complete tribute to the 1980s sat right next to me and proceeded to pull his knit hat off and out popped this amazing fucking hairdo that was feathered back and parted right down the middle. He pulled out a huge ass phone with an antenna on it and made a quick call to the office and right before he got off a few stops later he actaully pulled a small bottle of hairspray out of his bag and gave his feathered coif a couple of shots. My replacement seat-mate was a sort of middle-aged guy with his Ipod cranked up so that half of us sitting around him could hear what he was listening to. He was listening to "Don't Know What You Got Till it's Gone", by Cinderella. Holy shit I haven't heard that in years. I get off of the train and it's about 18 degrees downtown closer to the lake. People are bundled up wearing ridiculous looking shit that they just grabbed on their way out the house to stay warm. Everyone is walking quickly to get to where they are going trying to shield their faces from the sub-zero windchill. I'm in the middle of a group of people crossing the street together and out pops this asshole in front of all of us and he approaches this one lady and says, "excuse me, do you have a minute to talk about the environment?" She yells at him, "NO!!!" sounding as if she were going to kill him. I went in and out of a few stores, purchased a few things. The cold was getting to me. When the wind hits you and it's a below zero windchill man it just gets right to the bone and you can't shake it off unless you go into a building lobby and warm back up again. So on my way back to the train I was starting to stiffin up from the cold and it was getting unbearable. I didn't think that I could stand to walk another block in it and then wait on the train platform for the next train, so I ducked into a Starbucks and grabbed a coffee and sat for a minute. In walks this homeless looking guy who begins yelling and screaming to us all about Jesus and Christmas, etc. "All of you people don't know what Christmas is all about!!!! You think it's about buying coffee!!!!! It's not about buying coffee and presents damnit!!!!! It's all about God!!!! IT's about GOD!!!!!!" He repeats this several times until finally a manager approached him and escorted him outside. So, I make it to the L Train station and on the other side of the platform is some completely unsupervised kid with down syndrome acting crazy by himself. He kept picking up chunks of ice and snow and yelling, "BRICK!!!!" and then he would throw it as hard as he could at the train tracks and yell, "HA!!!!! Take that train!!!! Brick!!!!" I guess he was about 13 years old or so. Anyway, I'm bored and just felt like writing about this dumb shit. It's going to be 7 degrees tonight. High of 17 tomorrow. Son of a bitch.

I love my parents, I really do. But shit, having my dad and step mother spend the last 4 days up here with me has really worn me out. I never realized how annoying my dad is to me until now. He's a great father, I respect him, I think that he is a great man, etc. but shit, he got on my nerves the entire time that he was here. First of all, he chews gum non-stop with his mouth open and makes these horrible smacking sounds which I cannot stand! I don't remember him chewing gum this much when I was a kid. He would literally pull out a pack of gum from his pocket every hour or so and say, "does anyone want a piece of gum?" When in the hell did he start this annoying gum-chewing habit? Also, everyday that he was up here, he dressed clad in LSU gear from head to toe letting everyone know that he was an LSU fan. I never knew that there were so many random people from Baton Rouge just hanging out in Chicago. Every few minutes someone would say "Go Tigers!" to my dad, or ask him where he was from and then there was the, "hey! I'm from Baton Rouge too! conversation" with half of the people on the street. He also talks with a really slow and drawn out accent which made people's head's turn when they heard him speak. He says' "Chicawgo" instead of "Chicago" (he's from New Orleans). My dad speaks really loud when he's trying to whisper to talk about someone else in the room, often saying embarrassing things in a quiet restaurant such as, "John I notice that there aren't many black people in your neighborhood....." or, "there sure are a lot of fat women in Chicawgo John....." At one place that we ate at, we had a black waiter who spoke with slight ebonics, and my dad went on to proclaim rather loudly, and I'm very sure that the waiter and everyone else in the restaurant heard, "I just don't understand why they have to talk like that with inncorrect english....." I was so fucking embarrassed. Also, we had a very unseasonably warm week in Chicago last week while my parents were up here. So, we're walking around in 60 degree temps, I'm in short sleeves, and my dad and stepmom are all bundled up with gloves, scarf, ear muffs, etc. and they spent a good 30 minutes everyday arguing with eachother before leaving the hotel over whether or not they should wear all of the winter shit because it may or may not get cold while we're out. So I'd be trying to talk to my dad, and he'd yell "what?" to me because he was wearing fucking ear muffs in 60 degree weather. At one point I kind of lost my cool a bit and smarted off to them about wearing all of that shit in the warm weather and they were like, "well it's cold to us John, it's been in the 80s down in Louisiana...." It wouldn't have bothered me so much that they were wearing all of the winter gear but they were wasting way too much time putting it on and taking it off everytime we went in and out of a building. Overall I really enjoyed spending time with my parents and showing them around the city but I'm very relieved that they are gone and I can resume my normal life now. I love my dad.