94. Go to an ESPN radio show

I finally made it out to an ESPN radio show.  That is pretty much the only radio station I have listened to for the past 10 years when I am driving by myself.  I have gotten to know the different guys on the radio quite a bit - well, as much as you can by listening to them talk about sports and sometimes about their own daily lives.

Last week I was doing one of my regular checks on espn1000.com to see where they might be broadcasting from on the occasions for when they are outside of their regular studio.  I got really excited.  As I was trying to figure out how to swing it I just decided to make it part of my errands that I ran for today.  I had to so some shopping out near Geneva (where they were broadcasting from) so I just worked it as one of the stops.  As I got closer I saw the van and started to get excited.

Here was the scene when I got in there:

The place was pretty loud.  Between conversations from people at their tables and the large speaker blasting the radio show it was an interesting mix.  I have listened to these guys so many times on the radio and never really had a picture of what they look like.  They are just sitting back and having a conversation as if they were talking to each other on the telephone.  It was pretty neat. 

At the commercial breaks they just sat at the table and let people come up to chat and to sign autographs.  It was super laid back.  Another that thing hit me as I was there was that there is a ton of time for breaks.  It felt like there was 10 minutes for each commercial break.  When you mix in commercials, score updates from all of the different sports and news updates it gets long.  That was nice today as it allowed me to go and chat with both of the guys for a couple of minutes.

Here's a close shot of Waddle talking with a little boy that was in front of me in line:

That's probably not a shot that he would have approved to get posted onto the internet, but it is what I got.  When I was chatting with him I talked about how I used to act like I was him when I was playing football at recess back in 5th and 6th grade.  He was my favorite Bear when I was little so it was pretty cool to chat with him for a bit.  Silvy was really nice too.  Both guys were super inviting and in no way at all did they act like they were celebrities or that they would rather be in the studio with no one bothering them.

Here's a picture that they were handing out that I got both guys to sign for me:

That one is definitely going up on the wall in the garage!

I am very glad that I was able to go and check them out.  If it wasn't on this list I know I wouldn't have gone out to see them.

52 goals down!

34. Ride 1500 miles on my bike

I finally got there!  When I was writing my goals I thought putting 1,000 miles would be a good goal, but 1,500 would be more of a challenge.  That works out to about a mile and a half per day.  In my quest for 1,500 miles I think my longest ride was no longer than 15 miles.  I biked many times to school and that is 4 miles each way.  I biked last summer to most of my softball games and that was about 5.5 miles each way.  I bike to the grocery store and that is about 1 mile each way.  I biked to Aurora University and that is 3 miles each way.  I biked as often as I could and I really enjoyed it.  I kept watching the odometer to see myself slowly getting closer to the 1,500 mile mark.  It definitely was a motivator to get me on the bike.  1,500 miles is a lot of riding when you are going 4 miles at a time.

As has been the norm, my students have been a big motivator to getting this one done.  I told them at the beginning of the year that I wanted to ride more times than I bike to school and there is a decent chance that will get done. 

Now I just need to set my sights on more miles to get to on the bike. (2,500 by the end of summer?) I know that there will be a lot of bike rides with this kids this summer.  Lucy had her first ride last week and absolutely loved it.

Love that girl!

51 goals down!

89. One step closer

I finally received my FOID card in the mail. 

I sent it out in January and it came in the mail in the first week of May.


They say that it usually takes 30 days to be notified if you are approved or not, but mine took nearly 90 days.  I read this article that says that they are hitting record numbers in the applications that they are getting.  Apparently with the most recent legislation many are trying to get their hands on guns while they still can rather than wait for them to be banned or much more difficult to get.

Now to find someone to go shoot with...