I'm a pack rat. I keep everything, but then I can rarely find the things I want when I look for them. Last year, when writing about past jobs on my 'Year of Working' blog, I tore my apartment apart looking for a hand-drawn going-away card I was given when I left working in a microchip-making cleanroom to go teach at a high school. I knew I had it somewhere but never could find it. I ended up drawing my own crappy recreation.

I remember, while looking for that card, I came across some pictures I took at my first Chicago Improv Festial (CIF). Comedy Corner visited Chicago as a group and that's when I saw my first longform improv show and fell in love with the idea of moving to Chicago.

It was an Upright Citizen's Brigade show (this was back when they had their Comedy Central show). Their audience suggestion was "dog fucking" and they expanded that into scenes about people and their relationships with their pets and also the kind of things, good and bad, that follow us around for the rest of our lives.

I took some crappy pictures from the audience with my clunky old film camera that I only half knew how to use. I thought, "These people are on TV, I should take their picture" (During that same trip to Chicago I also took a picture of Jesse Camp, the MTV 'Who Wants to Be a VJ' winner).

The 11th annual CIF is going on this week. In fact, Whirled News is performing in it tomorrow. I thought, "I should find those pictures of that UCB show."

I tore my apartment apart again, but couldn't find them. I did, however, finally find that old hand drawn going-away card. Here it is.