Boomer! Sooner!

Now that the Tour de France is over (Go Lance!), the countdown to college football season can begin. The first slate of games begin Thursday, September 1st, which, by my calculations, is 5 weeks and 2 days away. Since we're no longer in Big 12 country, we'll be upgrading to digital cable soon so that we can get "ESPN GamePlan", a TV package that airs games not typically shown in your region. In addition, we're in dire need of a new TV. The set we currently have gets blurry on warm colors (yellow, orange, and red), and the remote stopped working some time ago. We've looked at Circuit City, but so far haven't come to any decision on what type of TV we'll get.

This past weekend we had a mini-reunion of sorts with friends from OU. George, Danny, and Rubén all travelled up to our place to hang out for a few days. It made for a full house, but it was a lot of fun. The weather was incredibly hot (Sunday we had a heat index of over 110 degrees), so we pretty much stayed inside all weekend and played board games, with Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, and Taboo being our games of choice. There was much hilarity. Sunday we also went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which we all very much enjoyed.

Fortunately the weather cooled down remarkably today. Temperatures were in the low 70's, and it was gray and dreary with a light rain falling all day. It sounds dismal, but it was an incredibly refreshing change.

A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love

Wow, the new Harry Potter book is good! I really loved it - it's dark, and funny, and very intriguing. There's only one book left, and it seems like the series should really be winding down, but it feels like we're still being given lots of new information and that the world, and Harry's future, is actually opening up rather than shutting down.

Also, I don't want to give anything away, because I know that not everyone may have had the chance to read it yet, but I think the ending is a lot less straightforward than Harry thinks it is. In fact, I have very strong thoughts on the matter, and if you ask, I will tell you all about it, probably in more detail than you ever dreamed you wanted. And if you haven't read it yet, go! Get reading! It's worth it!

P.S. Many congratulations to Joy and Cory on your engagement! We wish you every happiness together!

Harry Potter, You're So Keen

We had a really nice time with Jill! I'm so glad she was able to come visit. Final Trivial Pursuit tally: 3-3-1. (We had to call one game on account of extreme tiredness.) Other things we did while Jill was here included taking a nice walk at Chain O' Lakes State Park, watching the first season of Coupling, and going to Lake Michigan on a hot day without our swimsuits. We'll know better next time.

The day after Jill left, I got a rejection letter in the mail for a story I had submitted to a magazine for publication! This is actually much more exciting than it might sound, because, 1) this was my first rejection letter ever, and, 2) my rejection letter was personalized and encouraging. Some bigger magazines (which this magazine isn't, really, but still) have as many as 5 or 10 different rejection letters that they send out, depending on how thoroughly they're rejecting the piece. The meanings can range all the way from, "Please don't ever send us anything again," to "We really don't have space in this issue, but this was great, so please try us again." Mine was along the lines of, "We like this, but it's not quite right for us. Try it somewhere else." And an editor had taken the time to write a few notes about the story on the letter, including "Good Luck!" It may not sound like much, but it is encouraging. So...I'll try again.

Also, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out this Saturday! I pre-ordered it from Amazon, and it should be delivered that day. I'm just frantically trying to finish re-reading the first five books before then - I have only two more to get through, but they are by far the biggest two. Luckily, they're pretty quick reads for me, so I think I should be able to do it. I can't wait!

P.S. You can download a song about Harry Potter here. It's the British-ish version, which is not as good as the non-British-ish version available for sale on that website, but it is free.

The Great Outdoors

Jill is here, and the epic Trivial Pursuit battles have commenced! At last count Wendy was ahead 3 games to 2.

This evening we went for a walk at the McHenry dam. There seemed to be a lot of wildlife out and about, which was very cool. We saw a muskrat swimming in a pond, several frogs, a few deer, many different kinds of birds, the coolest of which was a field full of at least a dozen great blue herons, and, as usual, many lightning bugs. Afterwards we went swinging on a nearby swingset which is next to a large grove of pine trees. The swings, pine trees, and lightning bugs all made for a very pleasant evening.

A little over a month ago, I posted a link to a google map of the state parks we've visited so far. Google has recently released a programming interface to create custom maps, so you no longer have to rely on hacks. There's really no limit to where this will go; the possibilities are endless. People have already come up with maps showing live concerts across the country, earthquakes in North America, and even a map of injuries during the running of the bulls in Spain.

My favorite so far, though, is Gmaps Pedometer, which helps you record distances between points. Simply center the map where you want it, and start double-clicking to plot points. It does all the work of calculating the total mileage. Here's a map I created of a walk that Wendy and I would go on when we lived in Longmont. And here's a longer walk that I occasionally went on. It's a lot of fun when you can effortlessly connect technology with your everyday life!

Toor Day Frants!

It's Tour de France time again! I'm not sure why I love it so much, but I do. OLN shows the race live every morning starting at 7:30 a.m. CDT, and I usually watch it then.

I think part of the reason I enjoy it so much is the commentators, especially in the morning when it's live. They re-show each day's stage in the evening with extended commentary by Al Trautwig and Bob Roll (whose aggressively American pronunciation of Toor day Frants is pretty well known), but in the morning it's broadcast with Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. Phil and Paul are British and are themselves former cyclists. Phil in particular is pretty excitable, while Paul is fairly laidback. The following exchange, which took place during the prologue time trial a few days ago, pretty well sums up their personalities:

Phil (suddenly extremely excited): And it looks to me as though Stuart O'Grady has just gone through the time check in first place! Oh, this is amazing! No one expected -

Paul (interrupting): Uh, that's actually forty-first place, Phil.

Phil (immediately contrite): Oh, I beg your pardon, Paul.

They're a great team. And the race is amazing, and lots of fun to watch.

In other news, Jill's going to come visit us this Thursday and stay for a long weekend! She and Jay are in the process of moving to Connecticut (actually, Jay's already there), and she was able to take a few days away from visiting her parents in Indiana on her way up to come up and see us. We don't have definite plans, aside from playing Trivial Pursuit with each other. Hooray!