Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Monday, June 29, 2009

A tough weekend

This weekend was especially hard. It's different mourning a 32-year-old compared to a 87-year-old... Jeff's death was unexpected and jarring. I gave the eulogy, my first and hopefully my last.

There's only one thing that can cheer me up at this point.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

R.I.P.

My cousin, Jeff Hugo, died last night at 11:30 pm. He had cancer in his knee and his lung, and his heart gave out with some sort of mass pressing on it.

It's hard to believe that he's gone; I think the thing I'll remember most about him is his laugh. He was super funny and I always loved joking around with him and the rest of my cousins and uncles. He was also the first one to put me onto Run-DMC, and he always wanted me to come down to Chicago to visit him. I never got to...

One of the worst parts of the whole thing is that he was engaged. His fiancé, Britt, must be absolutely destroyed. At least the whole family can come together on Saturday, for the funeral.

It's still hard for me to deal with it... I need to do something to distract me. R.I.P. Jeff, I'll miss you for the rest of my life. There's a hole in our family that will never be filled.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Larry Fitzgerald, Jr.

Today I met the best wide receiver in the NFL: Larry Fitzgerald, Jr. of the Arizona Cardinals.


It was on assignment at his community football camp. He was nice enough; chatted with us for a bit and then accepted the photo op request. There were other players at the camp too, like Cris Carter and his son, Dominique Byrd, Steve Breaston and Chris Vincent.

What a day! It's truly a blessing to be able to meet a guy like this, an athlete at the top of his sport.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

J.D. Power & Associates

Who are these guys?

Every time I see a truck commercial it seems like J.D. Power and Associates "rated it #1 in its class" or "gave it a 5-star crash test rating". Does every truck ever get these awards?

I think I'm going to start a business called the Conover Corporation. We'll give products 5 stars and thumbs up and various other awards for $100,000 apiece. No one will ever know who we are or what we do, just like J.D. Power and his crew. Who's with me?

I quit.

My job in the meat department lasted two weeks. I couldn't stand:

- The 6 a.m. - 2 p.m. shift... getting up at 5 am? No thanks.

- The "lifers" who had been working there for 20+ years and have their own way of doing things... and they get mad when you don't do things like them.

- The literally non-stop manual labor. Call me a pussy, but that's not what I'm good at.

Those three things combined caused me to quit in the middle of an especially sleep-deprived shift. I didn't just walk out; I simply told my manager not to schedule me next week. Or the week after that...

I feel like on my last two days, however, I met a few guys that were pretty cool in different departments. I was also offered to come back for the dairy department, so I may do that. Until then I'll be wallowing in poverty.

Monday, June 1, 2009

"In the streets... of San Francisco..."

I wanted to use this song for a sample on one of my beats, but I decided not to when I heard this masterpiece. So soulful!