Dude we're getting the blog back together!!!

Howdy ya’ll get your reading glasses on because this is the NEW AND IMPROVED SUMMER OF NATE!!!! I’m back baby and better than ever so tell your friends. The first one’s free but once you get hooked I will be asking for you’re first born.

Top Ten Reasons why I love summer in Chicago

10. Not having to be around elementary school children- Yeah baby I ain’t got to work for like 2 and a half months. No Sunday night hangover dread. No more making my lunch the night before work. No more hour and a half in the car each day. No more going to bed at 10:30 and waking up at 6:00am. No more listening to people fighting because “he looked at me” “he touched me” “she breathed on me.” No more hearing my name butchered 1500 times a day. No more having 30 people talking to me at once while they are supposed to be sitting and listening quietly. No more people telling me when their birthday is every day when its four months away. No more people sneezing on me. Not having to spend my day threatening children will be quite refreshing. No more explaining simple subtraction and being met with nothing but blank stares. No more explaining the problem, showing them the answer and then still they don’t know what to do. No more listening to principals blame all of the world’s problems on teachers. YIKES I could go on and on but its summer time so I should stop being a Debbie Downer. (This could lead to a future blog that I have been thinking about for the past year or two entitled “Top 100 reasons why I hate my job.” Geez I hope I don’t get fired.)

9. Listening to Music- I love listening to music in the summer time. I love how hearing a certain song can take you back to a summer memory from long ago. I have so many good memories of going to summer concerts (man I need to get back into going to concerts I guess we are getting old.) I love the summer jams that come out. “IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE SO TAKE OFF ALL YOUR CLOTHES!” (It seems like all of Nelly’s music is only for the summer time.) I used to really love going to Blues Fest the first weekend in June in Chicago. I think I got arrested one time for peeing in the street downtown at Blues Fest or maybe that was at the Taste? Blues Fest used to really kick off a nice substance abusing summer blur quite nicely. This leads me to my next thing I love about summer.

8. SMOKING WEED- Ok Ok so I haven’t really smoked pot in like 5 years but boy when I was young and spry I used to love getting high especially in the summer time. Driving around in someone’s car sharing a joint, smoking bowls at North Ave beach, or on the lawn at The World Music Amphitheatre or Alpine Valley.

7. Summer House Parties-I love parties that start during the day and end late at night. This only happens in the summer. The BBQ is plentiful as are the kegs. Maybe my friend Miguel will treat us to another singing performance this year.

6. Getting a new job- Almost every summer I get a new teaching job for the upcoming school year. It is almost like a nice rebirth every summer. I leave a crappy job and have high hopes that my new job won’t be quite so crappy. So far I am 0 for 3. Being hired is a great feeling (wow someone actually wants my services?)

5. Cub/Sox games-Well this rivalry used to be a lot more fun before a certain team won a World Series in dominate fashion and a certain other team squandered all kinds of potential. This year was still cool with the Barrett and Pierzynski fight. I have been to a Cub vs. Sox game each of the last 4 or 5 years. My friend Moira and her family have a fun Cub/Sox party every year. Somehow her dad is able to get around 100 tickets to one of the games each year. They host a pre-party and then round up some school buses to take us to the game. Those were some fun times. Unfortunately, because this is largely a Sox crowd, and I am a rowdy Cub fan, I am no longer invited to these parties. Come on Sox fans no need to hate anymore you got the trophy what else do ya want?

4. July 4th North vs. South Side of Oak Park Softball game-NORTH SIDE RULES. This is the oldest standing tradition among my group of friends. Ten or eleven years ago our big group of friends, which was always slightly split down the middle based on geography, decided to start a fierce rivalry in the form of a North vs. Southside Softball game. Since that first game eleven years ago we’ve all gotten a bit fatter and dumber. Girlfriends have turned into wives. A few of us have children (with a couple on the way). The North Siders don’t see the South Siders very much any more (in fact for the most part the two sides only meet at this game) but it’s funny because at the games we still talk shit to each other like we’re still 18 years old. Incidentally, despite a few spirited cheaters on the North Side, the South Side has been whooping up on us in recent years. The North Side team is becoming decidedly slower and fatter as the years pass.

3. The NBA Draft/Fantasy Football Draft-As some of you may remember one of my favorite things in the world is a draft. Not the kind for a war or the kind that architects use but professional and fantasy sports drafts. Drafts are like my Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup and Olympics. I love everything about drafts. I love the element of surprise. I love trying to predict who will pick who. I love speculating about a players “tremendous upside potential.” I love the suits the players wear to the games and their entourages. All in all I guess I just love lists and what is a draft but a long list of players. I was very excited to find out that today is the first day that you can start drafting teams for the upcoming Yahoo fantasy football season.

2. Camping/Road trips- My parents never took me camping as a child so I’m not sure I know exactly how to do it. I don’t know how to pitch a tent, build a fire or catch a fish but I can sit around the fire drinking beer with the best of em. In college we used to travel to Wisconsin, Indiana and Missouri to “camp out” and go to Phish concerts. I don’t know if it was what you would traditionally think camping was but we did sleep in tents. Although one time I got kicked out of the concert and after many failed attempts to sneak back in I “slept” it off sprawled out in a field. Only to wake up disoriented because 30,000 people were standing around me after the concert and I sat up having no clue where I was. I hitchhiked back to the campsite and somehow made it to the right one even though I didn’t know where it was or what it was called. My friend Katie is presently trying to plan a camping trip for this summer although I think we have graduated from tents to cabins.

1. Sitting around inside doing nothing- Well I wouldn’t call this nothing exactly- I mean I am running about 3 fantasy teams into the ground, illegally downloading as much music as I can for my 90’s party, eating, drinking, scratching, instant messaging, emailing, researching the upcoming fantasy football draft, blogging, message boarding , watching Oprah, yelling at the dog…..is this Heaven?