I first ate at a Chipotle restaurant in 2004 while on a business trip in a Washington, DC. I was in love. 

Because I’m still not 100%, I’ve been working from home all week. This allows me the ability to play movies in the background while I work. 

Kinda funny. I swear off making videos and what happens? I’m inspired to make a video! 

This is kind of a fun little aside to the normal Tu(n)esday post. One in which I, a man with no medical training whatsoever, conduct surgery! On a tape. 

When I started #MiniMusicMonday last year, not only did I never fathom it would make it to year two, I never even thought I’d make it half a year. But this is fun! So here goes 2020!

Before I get into this post, I need to introduce you all to Dr. David Gunkel. He is an author and professor at Northern Illinois University, my alma mater. He was also the man who taught me coding and was part of my graduate thesis committee. He's also very heavy into artificial intelligence and robotics.

You know you’ve got an easygoing kid when this convo happens...

Sometimes, vacation just sucks. And, no, I don’t mean (just) the obvious “when it comes to an end” bit. 

Finally. My last goal update for 2019! 

Happy New Year!

I had this grand idea to watch a few more movies prior to posting this so that I had some more from which to choose. Did it happen? Heck no! I only watched half of a single movie. 

Yeah, so as we know already, my schedule got all messed up due to a desire to watch another 2019 movie that never really materialized. Add to that I am about to announce that I’m actually adding a recap post. 

THE LAST #MINIMUSICMONDAY OF 2019!!! Don’t worry, it’s coming back next year. I’m having too much fun with this. The penultimate challenge photo was guessed correctly by Marty Mankins, for the record. 

I know today, per my schedule, is supposed to be the final day of Kevin’s 7 highlighting my top 7 films of the year. However, there are still a couple days left in the year and I may still watch a movie or two that might merit inclusion on the list. 

I started 2019 off pretty strong on the goal front. But the further I progressed through the year, the tougher it got and the less interested I became in fulfilling some of them.

We spent yesterday trying to clean up and de-Christmas (tm pending, Marty) and get rid of the sick.

It is 59° and sunny here in far west Chicagoland. Skies are blue. People are wearing t-shirts, riding bikes, and driving with their car windows open.

So what was Nathan’s big deal Christmas gift this year? A Nintendo Switch. Yeah, we finally are letting Nathan move into the modern era of gaming. 

A week or so ago, I took Nathan to our one and only local record store - Kiss the Sky in Batavia, IL. He's 7 and I thought it would be cool to let him experience the joy of physical media. He loved it. But that's a story for another day.

A big congrats to Kevin Spencer who nailed it on last week’s #MiniMusicMonday!

This year and this series of Kevin’s 7 posts is quickly wrapping up. And one of my toughest lists to compile is here. Music ‘19, which is comprised of both Singles ‘19 and Albums ‘19. Buckle up!

While a vast majority of the skits were little more than callbacks to his great characters from 1980-81, tonight’s episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Eddie Murphy was dead on and exactly what that show needed in an otherwise weak season. 

‘Tis the season for wreaths! Unless you’re a bunch of sick assholes who don’t deserve to breathe the same air as the rest of us. 

Remember Zachary Levi? The guy who played the good-hearted and goofy, but lovable spy Chuck in the NBC series several years ago? Yeah, Katie and I watched that for the first few seasons until it became a bit too ridiculous to stomach.

A few months ago, I wanted to cancel out of an Audible account I had because I had a ton of books from my work at Geeks of Doom. Why pay for books when I was getting them for free?

I decided to bring back Taped for one last post this calendar year. I guess, technically, it's the last Taped post of the decade. Weird. I only realized this was the close of the decade about a week ago. I'd never considered it before that. 

Many, many people posited many, many guesses and many, many of them were correct. Actually, they were all correct. Lots of people knew this challenge photo. In all fairness, it's a pretty damn fine album.

Another week, another list! I have to admit that this K7 was not easy to pare down. Last year, I did an upper and lower 7. Just 7 this year. Man, it’s tough. But here’s what I’ve got for you on the television front:

Nathan called me out today. In grand fashion. 

I had a tough week at work. Nothing bad, just busier than normal and I wasn’t feeling good about the work I did. 

Apparently, for this draft post I re-discovered, I had written the Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA) before I wrote the actual post. How would I have had any idea how (un)related they were going to be if I never wrote the main post? I'm weird.

Despite their tendency to donate to conservative politicians, I am a fan of Jimmy John's subs. I love them and I don't care what you say. 

Over Thanksgiving break, Katie and I bought a Chamberlain MyQ Garage hub kit. We would’ve gotten either a hub or an opener with one built in when we bought a new garage door opener a couple years back but it was still a little cost prohibitive at about $100.

I was pretty impressed that my old friend Harley nailed last week’s #MiniMusicMonday. It was, indeed, Collective Soul. 

My second Kevin's 7 list of 2019 is nigh! And it be all about the funny picture books we all love so much. Much like last year, I had a lot of fun just reading graphic novels and collected editions of comics. In fact, I really didn't read any individual comic books at all. I just wait until a collection is available and then go to town on anywhere from 4 to 7 issues in one fell swoop. It really is the best way to go... until you have to wait another 4 to 7 months to continue the story. C'est la vie.

A few months ago, Katie and I discovered the Gerard Butler Fallen trilogy. For the uninitiated, they are Olympus Has Fallen (2013), London Has Fallen (2016), and Angel Has Fallen (2019) and feature Butler as Mike Banning, a Secret Service agent in service first to President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) and then President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) as he tries to save them and others from a variety of threats both external and internal to the government.