Fingers Crossed for Roomie

Wednesday night my roomie Tara was in a showcase show for 3 producers of SNL. They came from New York to check out funny women in Chicago. They went to Second City first and then came to iO. At iO, the showcase had only 8 women in it and Tara was one of them. I went to it and watched it with a bunch of my fellow CZers. I wasn't too nervous before it - unlike some of my friends - but there were moments during the show that I got nervous for the performers. But mostly the show was pretty good and my roomie was amazing. She really did a great job. Afterwards we all went next door for drinks and it was good times.

Today we got the news from Tara that she is being flown to NYC to audition again for SNL, this time in front of all the producers, included Lorne Michaels! This is the best. The totally deserves this and I hope she has a fun audition. Fingers crossed.

Tara will be one of 6 Chicago funny ladies to be flown out there. The others are Emily Wilson, Shelley Gossman, Laura Grey, Colleen Murray, and Katie Rich. Good luck ladies!

Early Voting

I voted early today. I wanted to try and do it in the morning but sleep got in the way. So I showed up at the early voting location in my ward, Merlo Library, a little before 1pm. The line wove around the aisles of the library and ended near the entrance on the handicap ramp. I had hoped the line would move fast but this was not to be. After waiting around 20 minutes and only moving 15 feets forward, I decided to get out of line and vote later in the day. I had a rehearsal at 2pm and had I stayed in line I probably would still be there now.

So after rehearsal I showed up at Welles Park in Lincoln Square hoping for better luck. This line was shorter than Merlo but it also ended just short of the entrance doors. A volunteer outside the building told me the wait in line would be one hour. It was 4:30pm at the time and I knew that the place closed at 5pm. However, the volunteers assured everyone in line that as long as you were inside the building before 5pm we'd get to vote early that day.

It did indeed take an hour to vote, but I was in no hurry. In fact, no one in line was frustrated by the pace of the line. Many people commented that this was the one occasion that a long line was comforting. I felt that way too. I've never been so jazzed about an election before. I made sure I was registered, I printed a list of recommended judges, filled out a sample ballot that I brought along, and I voted early. At work I'm constantly looking for new election news and refreshing the electoral maps of a few different websites. Obama may have a good lead in the polls, but there's that underlying fear that somehow these polls are way off base or something goes down that fails to count thousands of Obama votes. My level of anticipation is so great these days. I'm impatient and want Election Day to come sooner.

But I have to wait. So I'll try to be patient and wait for things to unfold naturally. I'm taking November 5th off from work. I'll either celebrate or sob all day long.

Pumpkin Carving

Our apartment had CSz peeps over for a pumpkin carving gathering. Tara and Sarah bought ten pumpkins for a bargain and brought them over. We laid out newspaper over the table and coffee table along with donuts and cookies. There was also hot apple cider. It was cool having people over. Unfortunately I had to leave midway into it for an iO show. Fortunately the show was a good one.

I came back and only a few people were still at the apartment. Even though it was late, I started carving a pumpkin. It was just like eating pancakes; all exciting at first, but by the end I was fucking sick of them.

That last sentence was a joke written by the late comedian Mitch Hedberg.

People You May Know

Facebook has a feature that shows a list of people you may know based on that fact that you have mutual friends. Because I'm in the improv scene, and many elder improvisers have gone on to get big time writing or acting jobs in the showbiz industry, it's not that strange to be only two degrees of separation from famous people. But it IS strange when their faces and names appear on Facebook and Facebook is almost asking me to friend them.

Famous people I may know:
Mike Birbiglia
Paula Poundstone
Michael Showalter
David Wain
Michael Ian Black

Door County

I just got back from Door County, Wisconsin. For those that don't know, Door County is the peninsula between Green Bay (the actual bay, not the city) and Lake Michigan. Before my family moved to Florida from the Chicago suburbs, we vacationed once a year in Door County. We had done this 3 or 4 times before the move. Usually we visited this part of Wisconsin on Columbus Day weekend since Illinois schools got Columbus Day off. I'm not sure if they still do these days.

My parents decided to visit Door County this Columbus Day weekend and I decided to rent a car and join them for a day. I drove up yesterday morning and "made good time" as my dad said when I arrived in the afternoon. While I was there, we revisited places we went to every time we visited Door County; which we found to be 15 years ago after we did the math. We went to a fish boil at the White Gull Inn and had breakfast at Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant. We also shopped in the quaint villages of the area: Sister Bay, Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, etc. I got some delicious coconut and chocolate fudge and we drove into Peninsula State Park to check out the trees with their brilliant fall colors. It was a good trip and it was nice to see my parents again this year.

Marathon Bike Ride

Saturday I went with friends on a bike ride in the burbs. We met up super early and used Matt's church's van to drive out to Dundee. I believe the Fox River runs through it. Along this river is a bike path; that's the path we rode on. We rode north to start and turned around at Crystal Lake after taking a break there for a bit. Round trip the whole thing was a little over 26 miles. My knees started to hurt around mile 24, so it was good that we didn't go much farther. Hopefully I'll last longer next time.

The experience was real fun. Fun bits, hanging with friends, the feeling of being active, feeling good about being awake so early in the day, getting exercise; all in all a great time.

And there was bacon. Need I say more?

Gilley made a video of the ride. Here it is:

Dundee Diecycle Trip from Dave Gilley on Vimeo.

Things That Go BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP In the Night

Around 2:30 in the morning, a smoke alarm went off in the laundry room of the apartment. My room is next to the laundry room so I should have been the first one to wake up. Instead, I incorporated the beeping into my dream. Until Scott's voice was heard, then I woke up. I woke up still groggy and had trouble finding the location of the smoke alarm. It was also constantly beeping at such a pitch that had I found the alarm first, I might have smashed it out of frustration that my ear were being assulated. Scott found it and got to stop beeping.

We couldn't figure out if it was a smoke alarm or a carbon monoxide dector. Tara was awake at this point too. There was a weird haze in the laundry room and we started to scare ourselves at the prospect of a carbon monoxide leak. We opened all the windows and called the fire department. Is the leak from our apartment or perhaps from the dry cleaners downstairs? Is there an actual leak or is it just a low battery alarm spasm?

I checked the heater in my room and found that the gas line to the heater was still on "open" and hissing but I hadn't been using the heater at all since last winter. So I turned the valve off and heart the hiss of gas stop. Was this the source of the problem? If it was, why hadn't this problem occured earlier in the year?

The fire department sent a truck over and fire fighters came into our place with their own dectors. Nothing registered. But by this point the haze was gone. One of they guys had a faux hawk and Tara dubbed him Faux Hawk Jones. Since there was no problem they could find, they told us it was probably a low battery problem and then left.

We were still a little freaked so we left the windows open and went back to bed. I'm still blogging so obviously I'm still alive.