Introduction

Welcome to pvcnova.blogspot.com. A little background:

I was born during the Carter administration, just outside of Chicago. Aside from college and one year after, I’ve lived here my whole life, and I love it. I’m the oldest of four kids, and I hardly act like it.

As is rather commonplace among North Siders, I have an acute fascination with the Cubs bordering on disease. If you have visited Wrigley in recent years, there's a strong chance that you laid eyes upon me. Baseball offers the perfect blend of relaxation, contemplation, and excitement—so I try to go to at least 20 games a season, though the number has been gradually increasing in recent years.

In a close tie in the “Pat’s biggest obsession” category, I am completely hooked on the music of the Grateful Dead and Widespread Panic. I’m a 1973/1974 Dead fanatic, but I’ll pretty much take anything before 1980. I saw the last two shows at Chicago, just a few weeks before I left for college. I remember being really pumped about doing the fall 1995 tour through the Northeast, but then Garcia kicked the can. What can you do? It was the best tour I never saw.

I threw myself into Widespread in early 1996, when tapes from the Sit ‘n’ Ski tour made their way out east. I’ve hauled to every Panic show within 200 miles of Chicago for the last several years, and I hit one or two shows outside that realm per year. As much as I love seeing them, I‘ve found that 3 or 4 shows of any given tour allows you to see just about every song they’ll play on that tour without repeating themselves too much. I miss Houser (I was at his last show too), but I think George does a pretty darn good job.

I’ll talk about shows until the cows come home, but please don’t beg for a list or b&p favors. Furthurnet requires patience, but you’ll be thankful for it if taping is your thing. In fact, I look back to the mailing days and I have to laugh. Digital music is a blessing.

I love to try new restaurants, but I don’t eat much. My closest family and friends find it odd that I perpetually suggest new places but always order roughly the same thing. You can learn a ton about a restaurant based on the quality of the Alfredo. If a place can't pull off basics, how could they possibly come up with really terrific exotic items?

I travel as often as possible. I've visited much of America and Europe under a variety of conditions. I’ve somehow managed, however, to bypass Colorado, Texas, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, but I’ll get there at some point. Here’s a really weird thing about me: I love maps, and I love figuring out unfamiliar public transportation systems. I was actually psyched for my first Tube ride.

I earned a bachelor's degree in History from Villanova University in Philly, and an MBA in Finance from Loyola University of Chicago. If that means anything to you, great—I don’t really think about it that much. I know a great deal about World War II and financial history, and I love to study economics, politics and sociology. I'm a big Star Wars fan. I read the equivalent of one book per week, on just about any topic under the sun. I love to drink and hang out. I try to be a well-rounded good guy to know.

I won’t say where I live, and I’ll never spell out exactly where I work. (While I am currently living, I currently am not working, so the latter disclaimer is strictly for future reference.) I will—or will not—change the names of the people involved, depending on how much I feel like letting on. I’ll never use last names, at any rate. Maybe some of it will be bogus or condensed, but only for the sake of continuity and readability.

In effect, this is more or less what I see.