This has not been a good week for me at all.  Lots of bad things have occurred but I will not be getting into it.  Sometimes you just have to learn from your mistakes, accept the repercussions of your actions and move on with your life.

So we will skip ahead to last Thursday.  Chris and I went to the National in Chicago for autograph shows.  I was able to add Dave Duerson, Emery Moorehead, Dennis McKinnon, Otis Wilson and Keith Van Horne to my 85 Bears Super Bowl football.  Those signatures join Fridge, Dan Hampton, Jim McMahon, Mike Dikta, Buddy Ryan, Gary Fencik, Kevin Butler, Mongo and Mike Singletary on the football.  I went through lines for Ryan, Mongo, Hampton and Fridge with Chris.  Fridge is looking real bad.  He was about 100 pounds lighter…maybe more…but in a wheelchair and his holds were so out of whack that he couldn’t even hold the sharpie right to sign his name.  Chris had to hold his helmet for Fridge to sign because it was too much for Fridge to do both.  Someone asked him if he had a stroke but he said no that it was some kind of muscle disease.

I bought a Cubs art print that I really like at the show.

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That will eventually make its way onto my wall somewhere.

Saturday was IWA.  It was a good break from stress.  It is always awesome to actually get some time to hang out with friends.  I did real well with getting donations for the half marathon for Rollin.  Stacy and I are now over $1000 for Rollin.  It is so amazing thinking about how many awesome fans that IWA has and how willing they are to help out Rollin.

Sunday and Monday was just doing yard work and being miserable around the house.

Today started horrible but it ended better.  Chris and I went up to Highland Park and met Ryan Dempster at a card store and got his autograph.  I added him to my team baseball that I’ve been working on.  I now have Derrek Lee, Carlos Marmol, Aramis Rameriz, Ryan Dempster, Mark DeRosa, Mike Fontenot, Ryan Theriot, Geovany Soto and Jim Hendry.  Dempster got to be the first one to sign my Cubs poster.  We tried to go get Theriot that was signing at a cell phone store in Vernon Hills close by but the line was wrapped around the store twice.

I can now see why Mike Burns is always so busy with SMV…he moonlights as a starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs.

That about wraps up the parts of the last week that I care to get into.

Tomorrow I will get to see Stacy and that will be a bright spot.

I should have my new shoes and socks for the half marathon.  I bought my camelbak so I can have 3 liters of drink so I don’t dehydrate.  Stacy and I will exchange some art prints and hopefully I’ll be making some decent money when I flip them.

I’ll be returning with another blog early next week recapping the half marathon on Sunday morning.

Thank you and good day.