The CPKs in Chicago Day 2

Day number 2 in the windy city. June 6. 2017

We woke up way earlier than intended. Two reasons, one, we forgot to close the curtains all the way and dang does it get bright early here. And two, we are an hour off, so 8 here is 9 back home.

Upon a recommendation, again, from the concierge, we headed to a breakfast and lunch place called Yolk just a block or two down from our hotel. It was so super good. So far the best meal we both have had while in Chicago, which is saying something.

I had Eggs Benedict with salmon. Yes, salmon. I never serve salmon anymore, as Breaky and half of my immediate family do not like it. So that was a little unexpected treat. Breaky got a breakfast wrap. Fantastic coffee, fun atmosphere, would definitely recommend.

From there we hiked to the Shedd Aquarium, as a part of the City Pass we had purchased. I do not know if it was just a busy day for school groups, or during the week is always bad, or if it is always this packed, but oh....my....God, so many kids.

Despite the swirling masses of mini devils, we did have a lot of fun. We touched sting rays, saw Beluga Whales, saw a myriad of sea, lake and river creatures, including, believe iit or not, bluegills, which, when I mentioned out loud that I have caught more bluegills fishing than any other fish in existence, this woman turned around and said, oh my God, me too! It was a moment.

We wrapped up the Shedd experience with a 4D adventure. We saw Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure. A 4D movie, evidently means on top of the actual movie being in 3D, your seat rumbles, wind is blown around your face, you get sprayed by misty water, poked in the back, and have little cord things whip around your ankles. While that sounds like torture to some, it actually was really well done. I did feel kind of bad, there were some kids that were waaay too young to be in there, and started freaking out and crying. Come on parents, the movie was "Sea Monsters" not "cuddly little harmless bunnies" or something. I do not think your 3 year old is going to do well with a 3 million year old monstrosity biting out at the audience in 3D, let alone all these other things happening around them. But you know what, none of my business. But really, I did enjoy the movie. Very entertaining and educational.

We then headed out of the aquarium and boarded a water taxi to take us to Navy Pier. Last time we took a water taxi/shuttle was when we went on our honeymoon in Mackinac Island. This was pretty similar, although didn't hit the speeds like we did last time.

At the Navy Pier, we grabbed a hot dog, walked around a bit, took pictures. Basically did the touristy thing. Breaky vetoed the Ferris Wheel, which is fine with me, I've already been on it. We have plans that will take us to breathtaking views of the city anyway, so overall I wasn't that disappointed.

We debated all day about how to get back to the hotel after Navy Pier. I insisted it was walk-able, and that we didn't have to waste money on either the water taxi back to the museums, which were within walking distance of our hotel, or an Uber. Breaky looked up on the GPS, and sure enough, just about 2.5 miles away. We can totally do that. You want to know how you can tell we did? I now have a nice llittle sun burn on my chest, despite sunscreen application earlier in the morning. But in all seriousness, the walk wasn't really that bad.

For dinner, we headed to a restaurant called the Pump Room. The reason we went there was because that is where my grandparents on my Mom's side had their first date. At the time, they couldn't afford to actually have a meal there, so they ordered a drink and sat outside for a good hour or so.

So we take an Uber, which is becoming our main source of transportation as, since we don't care if we share a ride with others, is insanely inexpensive.

We arrive at the Pump Room, and this is fancy. I am talking like, pushing my chair in for me fancy. I start asking questions about where this "outside" bit would be that my grandparents would have sat, and I guess it would have been upstairs on the roof. Nifty! Also found out that much of the original Pump Room has been auctioned off about 5 years, all except the chandelier in the hallway.

Breaky and I had what was probably one of the top 5 meals of our lifetime. For drinks, I got a cucumber martini, and Breaky had a Stella. For appetizer, we had calamari, which is tradition! For the main course,  Breaky had filet mignon with white asparagus and mashed potatoes and I had red snapper with a brown gravy sauce mushrooms and vegetables.

When we were explaining the connection to the Pump Room and my grandparents, I had mentioned that we were in Chicago celebrating our 2 year anniversary. This is true, although our actual anniversary isn't until later June, the intention of this trip was to spend time together and celebrate my birthday and our anniversary. Our waiter went well above and beyond! As a result of our anniversary, we got complimentary bubbly, and a dessert! Both were to die for.

We ended up ordering another round of drinks before departing, as neither of us were driving or even walking back to the hotel. Grabbed another Uber back, headed upstairs and legitimately crashed. Which is why this blog post is getting posted a little later than the previous one. Sorry, kinda....not sorry.

The CPKs in Chicago Day 1

Chicago, here we are!

So, Breaky and I had talked about taking a vacation, just the two of us, not related to work for a while now. Something to do before we got serious about settling down and growing roots. We had initially talked about a Europe trip, but after this past year's election and global political climate, we figured we should probably stay local (meaning within the U.S.). Somehow, the fact that Breaky had never been to Chicago came up, and we figured it was a great opportunity to take a vacation that was unique, but close to home.

So, we budgeted for about a half a year to save up for this trip. Asked our friends and family what we should see, where we should go, and now we are here!


Day 1

We woke up this morning, packed up the car, said goodbye to DogCPK, made sure the house and the dog were looked after, and "hit the road" so to speak.

We live in Kalamazoo, which is almost exactly the halfway point between Detroit and Chicago, so naturally there is an Amtrack that runs through Kzoo to Chicago. I have taken my sister to the train station in Kalamazoo numerous times, and even have taken the train from Detroit to Chicago, but the over 10 years I have lived in Kalamazoo, I have not taken this train from Kzoo to Chicago.

We headed to the train station, get settled, and of course, out comes the technology. Hey, it is a two hour train ride. I played a few games of Hearthstone, then booted up offline, Minecraft, in which I started to replicate our family's cabin. I haven't even gotten the entire area cleared out yet. It did help pass the time very well. I think Breaky was watching the coverage of Epicenter, the Dota tournament.

Once we get to Chicago, we grabbed an Uber and headed to our hotel, The Essex Inn. What to say about our hotel... Our room is super small, but it doesn't have anything we don't need. Which really isn't saying much. We have a TV, and a bathroom, and a bed. We honestly got what we paid for, and it could have been worse. The view is spectacular, and it is in a great locations for things we knew we wanted to see, like the museums and Navy Pier, so again, it could be worse, but honestly, it could have been better.

So we unpack our belongings and headed out to explore a little bit and grab some lunch. We asked the hotel concierge where a good place for lunch would be that is within walking distance and ended up at a place called the Burger Bar, where we had... you guessed it, burgers!

Yeah, burgers and beer. Awesome way to start your vacay. :)

Food was alright, in my opinion. I had a blue cheese burger, which had some crunchy black pepper that was just a little too much for me. But the truffle fries were alright, and the beer was cold.

After lunch, we walked down to the museums with the intention of heading to Shedd Aquarium first, but the Jurassic World Exhibition caught Breaky's eye, so we headed to the Field Museum first.

By the way, we made the decision to get a City Pass, which includes entry to many popular attractions and museums. Worth every penny. Definitely a huge savings.


Anyway, back to the Field Museum. We obviously get the tickets to the Jurassic World, but as a part of the package deal, we also get tickets to a 25 minute 3D movie, which for us was Above the Earth, which is about a "birds' eye view" of the world. Because of how the timing ended up, we walked around the second floor of the museum for about 20 minutes or so, then headed to the movie.

After the movie we headed to the Jurassic World exhibition. We were taken on a journey similar, or so I have been told, to the movie Jurassic World. We start on a boat with an introduction and then step into the "Gentle Giants" part, with realistic animatronic dinosaurs.

Then we headed to the raptor area. It was...well, kinda cheesy.

You can't tell from the pictures, but "Blue" the raptor was basically someone with a raptor suit on. Kind of disappointing. But not the worst. 

Then the T. Rex area. This was pretty cool.

And here is Breaky with his favorite dinosaur, the Stegosaurus.

We exited the exhibit, then headed back to the museum where we ran through the evolution exhibit, then through the Tattoo exhibit, and obviously saw Sue:

Sue the T. Rex!

Headed back to the hotel, where we kinda chilled, Breaky played some Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Wii U we took with us, and I played some more Hearthstone. Eventually we both gave up and ended up falling asleep while watching the Oklahoma vs Florida Softball National Championship. Keep in mind, this is around 5:00 or so in the afternoon. This is important to remember for later. 

We woke up from our much needed nap, headed downstairs and down the street to a bar that would have the Stanley Cup Playoff Game on T.V. We went to a bar called Louis' Bar. We had some appetizers, drinks and watched the Predators vs the Penguins. There were both Pittsburgh and Nashville fans at the bar, so that made it interesting when either would score. 

We headed outside after dinner after the first period where this very nice black and white pitt bull mix was with his very, very very talkative owner was. Capitan Jack Sparrow was his name. Totally worth standing in the chilly night listening to his owner just to meet this lovely pitty. 

7-11 has cheaper bottled water than the hotel, so we swung by there to pick that up and maybe some additional adult libations. 

We watched the rest of the game, in which the Predators owned the Penguins (sorry Diva) and shared some Half-Baked Ben & Jerry's ice cream (totally the adult libation I was talking about...hahaha) 

Remember that National Championship game I was talking about? Yeah it is 10:41 pm here, and it is the top of the 16th inning and it is still tied and still going on. Those poor girls. 

So here is to a great first day of our vacation, and to many more! 

Money money money must be funny-An introspective and an ABBA song

Hello all!

Breaky and I work tirelessly, in general. Breaky has super weird hours, often very randomly and in the case of last night, for very long periods of time. I work a comparatively normal "9-5", which really is a 7:30 am to 4:00 pm, but who's counting. I have never not held a job since I could drive, my first job being a hostess at an Italian restaurant in a German tourist town, the irony of which is not lost.

As any and most every college student, I had a bunch of student loans, and during and immediately following college, my jobs were not huge money makers. Luckily for me (hindsight of course), my first job was at a bank. A bank call center to be specific. Lucky? Why you ask? Well, because they trained us really well with how banking and personal finance should and does work. I managed to save up and paid for a used car that was all my own (I had one before, but it was my Dad's and we ended up selling it to a friend for like, $300, because that was all it was worth) without having to take out a car loan.

Not to say times weren't tough. I bet you didn't know how versatile and cheap rice was, did you? I had roommates, which 3/4th of the time was financially advantageous and  1/4th the time hurt my bottom line (you know who you are).

When Breaky and I started getting serious, our combined income, plus the steadiness of it all since he was still with Frostburn Studios, led us to make the decision to buy a house, where we now reside. Small little one story, two bedroom, three bathrooms. We didn't buy it on a whim, we saved up, budgeted like crazy, sold some of my old furniture (at least that which did not get chucked out a window. Different story for a different time), and watched our budget for the next year very carefully.

Now, with Breaky working odd hours and random events when they come around, money is not consistent, but doesn't not exist. This makes budgeting and spending appropriately very difficult. His stream may get hundreds in donations and subs one month, but not even scrape together $5 the next. He may have 8 events in a week and then not have a thing for the next 3 weeks.

If you or your significant other held a contract or commission job, you can relate to how difficult it can be to plan out any kind of budget. I should have added the struggle of not being able to set a budget in my "You May Be an esports Significant Other" post. I'll add it to the next one!

Intiuit Mint has been our lifesaver. **disclaimer: This is what we use, and I am not getting anything for advertising this app. It works for us, but may not work for others. Use what you want, but you should be tracking your spending anyway**

Mint allows us to keep all of our accounts in one area, where we can track credit cards, car loans, my student loans, my retirement accounts, etc... It also tracks our transactions, allowing us to categorize those transactions. Such as "groceries" "doctor visits" etc...In addition, it allows us to label the different kind of income. For example, we have different budgets for Breaky's stream, a different one for events he casts for, and of course, my income.

Our budget in the beginning of the month is super thin. Mostly because we are not sure how much we have to work with. I can add more to the budget items if/when we need to, after confirmation of payment dates or an estimation/goal of how much the stream will bring in.

Another feature that has been great is the ability to "roll over" on our budget. This means that if Breaky has a great month, we can budget more than we know we will be spending in a category, and that amount will roll over in to next month, because we didn't spend it, it will be there in case of emergencies, or in case we wanted to save up for something special. Or both. Both is good.

Now, for anyone that is self employed knows you also have to be careful about taxes. Because of the categories of types of income, we are able to set aside what will be taken out, based on, but rounded up on, the income Breaky would get that he is not taxed on upon receipt. That being said, because it is an Intuit product, it automatically syncs with Turbo Tax, which our credit union, (WHO WE LOVE BTW) has a discount through. It cannot hurt to check with your banking institution upon tax season to see if they give any discounts for tax assistance software.

I take a little pride in how safe and maintained we have been since Breaky went freelance. We are happy to announce that we no longer have any credit card debt, leaving just my student loans, our mortgage and Breaky's truck loan. We still use our credit cards, but pay them off at the end of the month. But this is huge for us. A huge milestone.

So....

As a result of planning, budgeting, lots of saving and a few minor domestic squabbles, we are going on vacation to Chicago, just Breaky and me. He has never been, so it should be tons of fun!

I will continue to update on the blog our daily adventures, and I'm sure Breaky will live stream parts of it.

You may be an esports significant other if

I think I've had a draft of this blog post since my blog's inception.

But recent events made me realize that there may be some (a few, not many) people out there that may feel the same way. That is, the weird life that is the significant other of someone in the esports or video game industry.

I have been Breaky's "other half" for 5 years. I have alluded to the struggles of being a wife to someone who travels a lot for their craft. There are many other struggles that other significant others may find they can relate to. Or maybe not, maybe these struggles are unique to me, I dunno.

Anyway, I figured it may be fun to actually hunker down and finish this blog post about things I've noticed have become a part of my identity as the wife of an esports figure. Enjoy.


You may be an esports significant other if:

1. You have no idea what their schedule is for the next week/month/year



My family can attest, his schedule makes it really hard to pin down family vacations, dates, holidays etc... Heck, this past year was one of maybe two Thanksgivings he was able to enjoy in the states! Although, did I mention he was in Sweden like, two days before our wedding? Yeah...


2. Learning names feels like double duty



Not only do you have to remember a person's real name, but very often their gamer name. I do not think there are many of our friends who calls Breaky by his real name.

There are times we are gaming together and I have to ask who this particular person is because I forgot their gamer name. On the flip-side, I sometimes forget that people have real names, and are, for example, not called WZA in real life.


3. Getting their attention can be a task




Esports is a career that is steeped in technology, including social media. Whether it is an important Skype conversation about how they may be traveling to Sweden next week, a Reddit post about the latest tournament drama, or checking their official Facebook page, their attention may have to be dedicated elsewhere other than you talking about how your work day went. Heaven forbid if you need to ask a question while they are actually in a game! (I know better now).

I personally handle this pretty O.K. I am not one who needs like, constant attention, and honestly, I have a lot of hobbies that would require me to not be around other people all the time. However, I can randomly be needy. Breaky knows this. I am very obvious about it too, which helps him figure out when he needs to pay attention to me for like, 20 minutes. Communication is key.


4. You check to see how much time you have when someone asks what your significant other does for a living.



For me, the quick and "easy" version is "he does a lot of video production in the video game industry" or "he works for a video game company". Obviously, that's not wrong, but when I am running down the hall to grab something from the printer, I do not want to have to explain to Bob from HR what an esport is, or how there are "broadcasters" or "casters" for these events.


5. You get a lot of questions about how an esport can be considered a real thing



I used to get really excited when there is a segment on esports on TV. Like the CBS morning show, or another news segment. I couldn't understand why Breaky didn't get as excited as I did. But then I watched them. The amount of condescending, un-informed dribble that would come out of these segments was astounding. Much of this information was false and based on opinions of a generation who not only doesn't "get it" but doesn't want to try to hear the other side.

The episode of Bull on CBS did a better job of portraying esports. Who knows, maybe things are getting better. Then again, maybe not.


6. You find yourself lost when your significant other has conversations about a game, event or feature you know nothing about



Especially in the beginning of our relationship when Breaky and his coworkers started talking "shop" I found myself zoning out. As many of those coworkers got significant others, I had people I could converse with about something else.

More recently, I find myself in the middle of those conversations, but am acutely aware if there are stragglers who may not know what we are talking about. I do my due diligence to make sure to either steer the conversation in a different direction, or try to engage them in some way.


7. If you are a gamer too, date night could mean gaming date night



Breaky and I have been doing a lot of Minecraft together lately. We call these nights "gaming date nights." They are nice, until you know, one of us accidentally hits the other with a shovel, or laughs so hard they cry when a creeper blows up after falling from God only knows where on top of their head (oh goodness was that funny, one minute he was there, the next BOOM, gone! haaahaha....sorry babe)
I even have a blog post about our Minecraft adventures, but I am not sure my enthusiasm for figuring out how to make colored carpet warrants a full blog post, but Breaky was excited for me, so that's that. True love ladies and gentlemen.


8. If your significant other uses a headset mic, you often get frustrated when you think they are talking to you, but are talking to internet friends


Sometimes this is ok though. For example, last night Breaky said to his teammate "don't decapitate me!" or something like that. I, for one, would never do that, nor would that be something he would ever have to worry about from me.

HOWEVER, sometimes if we are in the same room and he starts talking, I can't tell if he's talking to me or not. So we have a system. He lets me know when I have to pay attention to him (see #3)


9. Loud noises/shouting is background noise



I am married to someone who's official job title is "Shoutcaster". No joke. Also, about 90% of his job is done in our house in our studio/office. Has been this way ever since we lived together in our apartment. Now, a good chunk of the "yelling" isn't like, angry yelling. Well, sometimes there is raging, but most of the time, it is hype yelling. It is something that I have just gotten used to. Heck, after 2 months, the dog got used to it too.

There have been many times we'll have company over when Breaky is still streaming or casting, and they will stop mid-sentence because of the shouting. I get confused about why they stopped and what they are hearing. Then it hits me. Normal people are not used to shouting as background noise.


10. You learned a new language without realizing it




I actually did a blog post about this too. I have had to learn a lot of acronyms at first. Now the struggle is to remember to not use them, oh, let's say...at work. Or around my family. Or at the farmer's market. Normal people don't know what to do if I randomly start spouting off about Linda down the hall being "super salty" or Mike from finance being a troll. Especially if your boss is an older medical doctor.



Well, I hope you all had as much fun reading this as I had making it. It was loads of fun. If I missed anything, please leave a comment!