Bikes and Trails

Way back around the middle of March we experienced an awesomely epic heat wave, the likes of which no weather forecaster or record book around here had ever seen. For 10 straight days we had highs in the 80s! In March! We were shattering record high temperatures every day, to the point that it became old news. Another day. Another record high. We even tied the record for most consecutive days of breaking record highs!

In the middle of this epic awesomeness, Wendy and I bought new bikes. And they’re awesome.

This spring, not one, but two new bike stores opened up near our house. So I went to both and did some test riding. I found one I liked, then brought Wendy along to give the women’s version a test ride. Her first comment was “Oh, this is nice. I like it!”. That sealed the deal. The winning bikes were Giant Sedonas from Epic Cycle and Fitness. They’re comfort bikes, so they’ve got the upright riding style of mountain bikes, along with suspensions for the front wheel and seat post.

The very next day we went to the Prairie Trail and rode our bikes to Wisconsin. The Prairie Trail is a 26-mile bike trail that runs from the city of Algonquin (which is well south of us) all the way to Wisconsin. We live just a few minutes from the midpoint of the trail.

Blue is the Prairie Trail. Red is the Hebron Trail.
Green is a connecting trail.

It’s certainly fun and impressive to say we rode our bikes to Wisconsin, but the truth is on this particular day, since it was our first major ride, we started in Glacial Park which is only 5 miles from the border. So to Wisconsin and back was just about 11 miles. Not the longest ride (last year my longest was 30 miles), but still an impressive feat for a couple of amateurs on their first ride of the season.

Reaching the northern end of the Prairie Trail is always fun. The trail dumps you out into a cul-de-sac in a small neighborhood in Lake Genoa, WI. It’s almost like you wind up in someone’s back yard. There is at least a small park with a bench and a playground nearby. It’s a good place to stop for a rest.

The end of the trail runs between two houses
and stops in a cul-de-sac.

And as further proof you’ve entered Wisconsin, one of the houses in the cul-de-sac has a Packers helmet for a mailbox:

Click to embiggen

Since that first trip, we’ve tried to do a weekend ride whenever the weather allows. The Prairie Trail is always our first choice because of its proximity. We’ve explored the majority of it, but have yet to ride the southern third. There are several connecting trails, too. We rode the Hebron Trail one weekend, which is a 5 mile path connecting to the Prairie Trail just before Wisconsin.  And I’ve since discovered many, many more trails in northern Illinois (and southern Wisconsin) that we’re hoping to ride someday, too.

I always track our rides on my Android phone using My Tracks. After one month of bike riding, we’d ridden 100 miles. We’re currently at 110 miles -- our rides lately have been less frequent because the past few weekends were either cold or rainy, or both.

Yes, cold and rainy. The epic heat wave is now a distant (but blissful) memory. We were fortunate, at least, to have a gradual return to normal temps. There was no jarring 40 degree temperature drop. Just 70s, 60s, 50s, then 40s. An interesting footnote to the heat wave is that for only the second time ever, March was actually warmer on average than April.

Now that May is here, temperatures are steadily creeping back up. Next week’s forecast calls for sunny and clear skies in the 70s. So hopefully we’ll get back into our regular weekend rides.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. Ours was good - allow me to update you!

We visited both families this year for Christmas, and decided to drive instead of flying. This turned out to be a good and a bad decision - good because we avoided the major delays all the airports seemed to be having, and bad because the delays were due to weather which we ended up driving through. The day before we left, we got 9 or 10 inches of snow here, and areas south of us got ice. The roads were pretty much fine by the time we left, until it started snowing as we were driving through Iowa. Then they were not so great. What made it even scarier were all the cars we kept seeing in ditches from the previous day's ice storm. Luckily, thanks to some skillful and careful driving by Randy, we made it to Kansas City for the night.

The hotel we stayed at was recently remodeled and was, no joke, possibly the nicest hotel either of us had ever been in. The bathroom was gorgeous (I know! A hotel bathroom!), there was a beautiful built-in armoire/computer desk thing, and it had a 33" flat panel TV, which is both bigger and fancier than the one we have here at home. We kept checking the (pretty cheap) rate quoted in our confirmation e-mail to make sure there hadn't been a mistake. So, if you are ever looking for a hotel in Liberty, Missouri, I definitely recommend the Hampton Inn!

The rest of our Christmas was good, too. We saw both sets of parents, and had a lot of fun hanging out with Abby and her boyfriend Matt at my house, and with Joy and Cory at Randy's house. Both of our parents have "new" houses, and it was awesome to get to see all the changes. My parents' house was actually new last year, then they had a fire and were displaced for nearly 6 months while basically everything in the house was repainted, restored or replaced. So, "new." Randy's parents' house was actually new almost 20 years ago, but they've recently had non-essential (but nice!) things like trim and bathroom vanities installed. The kitchen's also been completely redone, and is gorgeous now. So, again, "new."

As much fun as it is to see our families and get nice Christmas presents, it is also very nice to be home again. It is less nice to have to go back to work, but such is life, I guess.

Here's what else we've been up to, in handy list form (now with bonus exclamation points!):

- This is our third winter in Illinois, and it is off to a rollicking start. Last winter was extremely snowy, and this one is already on pace to outstrip it! Um, great? Our mail box was damaged by a snow plow a few weeks ago, and the township road department brought us out a replacement box, free of charge. However, the ground is completely frozen, so right now it's sitting in a bucket of sand right next to our old, currently unusable mailbox. Classy! They've promised to come back and put it in the ground once spring arrives, which will probably be sometime around mid-June.

- We recently switched to VOIP for our home phone service. It's the T-Mobile @ Home service, and it's only $10/month, since we both already have cell phones with T-Mobile. This is especially exciting because apparently local and state taxes make it impossible to get the most basic of basic phone services in Illinois for less than about $45 a month. What a deal!

- While we were in Oklahoma, Joy and Cory asked us about our water softener. The water where they live is very hard, and they're thinking of getting one. We both recommended it, but I have to say, now that we're back home, I recommend it even more. A water softener makes for very nice hair. I guess it's good for other things too, but hey, shiny hair!

I leave you with these final words of wisdom from Jackie Chan, courtesy of an interview we saw on Toon Disney. Don't say you don't like something without trying it - that's not polite. "Try it before you don't like it."

I hope you like our blog, but please at least try it before you don't like it!

Tasty Morsels

* If there was any doubt about us being bona fide home owners, it can now be put to rest. We spent our Friday night at Home Depot and Menards, looking for a new bathroom light fixture and mirror.

* We went to see Children of Men last Tuesday evening, and wound up being the only two people in the theater. That made us wonder if they even bother starting the movie if no one shows up. We decided they must, because someone could always come a little late, and if the movie hadn't started, that would make the next showing start late. Anyway, the movie was very intense, but very good.

* On Friday the temperature hit 40°, the first time we'd been above freezing in two weeks. It was but a brief respite, however. Highs for the next 10 days range from 7 to 25 degrees.

* As you can imagine, people are very excited about the Bears being in the Super Bowl. There's a billboard somewhere in Chicago that we saw once, which said "Baseball will divide Chicago, but the Bears shall unite it."

* The past few weeks I've been working on replacing the old light switches and electrical outlets in our house. I'm very pleased, because not only did I successfully replace two 3-way switches, but I fixed two 3-way switches that had been installed incorrectly! Woo!

* We've been trying a few new recipes lately, with great success. Last week we made pasta with olive pesto, and it was INSANELY GOOD! Wendy got the idea from an event at work, where a restaurant catered the food and brought olive pesto pasta. They said it was their best-seller, and I now believe it.

* We also tried homemade pretzels, which were good. Ditto for a chocolate mint cake we had right after New Years. Also, Wendy used an Amazon gift certificate to buy a Muffin-Top Pan. I had never heard of these before, but I was blown away when she told me about it. Basically they let you just make muffin tops, ala Seinfeld. Today we had chocolate chocolate-chip muffin tops. Very, very tasty.

* Lest you think we gorge ourselves on decadent desserts, we've also been trying some recipes from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen. I found it on Amazon, and was intrigued because it had over 50 reviews with an average rating of 5 stars. Everyone says that the recipes are great, even for non-vegans, and so far, yeah, we agree. Spaghettini with Walnut-Garlic Sauce and Herbed Scalloped Potatoes, Provencal Style are a few of the tasty dishes we've tried.

PictureFest

Like much of the country, we were hit with heavy snow last week. Here's the view we had from our kitchen window after the snow stopped:


We were curious as to how much snow we received, so Wendy bravely went forth with measuring tape in hand.


We measured 9" on the railing, and up to a foot on the deck. Later that day, I performed my own act of bravery by shoveling the driveway (with the snow shovel we cleverly bought the night before the storm hit).


It's been a week, and there's still plenty of snow left on the ground. The highs the past few days have been in the teens, but thankfully we're due for a warm-up this weekend, with temperatures returning to the mid-40's.

Turning from the outside to the inside, here are the highly anticipated photos of our dining room and living room.


The living room still has some work left to be done (note the lack of a coffee table, end table, and pictures).


And, finally, our snazzy red bathroom, which Wendy painted just before Thanksgiving.


I hope you enjoyed the tour. Please come again soon!

Rainy Days and Tuesdays

The weather here has been fantastic lately - mid-sixties and gray and rainy. I'm not being sarcastic; I really love this kind of weather and missed it desperately when we lived in Colorado and it was sunny day after day after freaking day. The clouds and rain remind me of fall and melancholy and thick socks and warm drinks and jackets and books and football and other things that I love.

I will admit that chilly gray days are not ideal for picnics, but that didn't stop us from going to two this weekend anyway. Friday was the employee picnic at my college. It's not nearly as big and fancy as Randy's company picnic, but it was a good time anyway. Randy got to meet most of my co-workers for the first time, we ate Mexican food, and we played the beanbag-toss game. (I lost. Repeatedly.)

Saturday was the neighborhood association block party, and it was pretty windy and cold all day. We ventured out anyway and chatted with more of our neighbors (they're still all very friendly). We also met a woman who grew up in our house - her parents were the original owners of the house, and she still lives in the neighborhood with her husband and kids. Apparently there used to be a hot tub in our backyard.

Sunday we bought dining room furniture! It hasn't been delivered yet, but we're very excited about it. A table big enough for more than two people to sit at! Chairs that match the table and each other! We also got a china cabinet, so the china we got for our wedding may soon be freed from the boxes it's been living in since we got it. Living room furniture is actually kind of a more pressing need - we did have dining room furniture; it just wasn't very nice, whereas we don't have any furniture in the living room yet - but we haven't found anything yet that we liked enough to buy. We'll keep looking.

Mega-Post!

Well, there's been a lot going on recently, and it's high time we filled everyone in with the details. This is my take on the past month and a half, see below for Wendy's take. And be warned that this is a very lengthy post, with many tangents and side trips.

We started looking for a house in earnest around mid to late February. We're not always the quickest decision makers, especially when it comes to major decisions like buying a house, but thankfully the deadline for notifying our landlords that we were moving out loomed large enough on the horizon that we finally scrambled into gear. So, we got in touch with a realtor that we met during our move here from Colorado and began scouring the internet mercilessly, looking for house listings and getting an idea of what was available and what the price ranges were. It didn't take long for illinoisproperty.com, zillow.com, and maps.google.com to become our most frequently visited sites.

Then we began driving all around the neighboring towns (McHenry, Wonder Lake, Woodstock, Crystal Lake, and Island Lake) to get a feel for what they were like. We put a lot of miles on the car during this time, and at one point we got to watch the odometer roll over the 100,000 mile mark (but don't worry, we still kept an eye on the road).

One day during this "exploring the area" phase, we decided to meet for lunch and drive around a neighborhood in Island Lake. It turned out to be a nice neighborhood, and we decided we were interested in one of the houses for sale in it. On the way back we stopped at a gas station to buy some drinks, and as I got back in the car, I heard the unmistakable sound of a camera taking a picture. It took me a minute to realize it was the camera phone in my pocket. "Oh," I said to Wendy, "I think I just took a picture of my pants." So I opened up the cell phone and discovered, that, in fact, I had taken 26 pictures of my pants! The camera's entire memory was full of dark blurry pictures of my pocket, which amused us both. Apparently, I just like pants.

And while we're talking about pictures of pants, it seems only reasonable to segue into pictures of dogs. Coton de Tulears, to be exact. Unfortunately, though, this is a somewhat sad story. As Wendy and I were heading out one Sunday afternoon to drive around neighborhoods in nearby Woodstock, we saw a small white dog running around the middle of the road, holding up traffic in front of us. After a moment the dog got safely to the side of the road, and we all went on our way. A couple of days later, though, lost dog signs were up in the vicinity and an article appeared in the local paper. Apparently someone pulled over, put the dog in their car, and drove away. As the days passed, we kept exploring more neighborhoods, and we started noticing signs everywhere with a picture of the missing dog. People were even handing out fliers at the nearest major intersection. There's still no news yet, but there is a reward being offered, and there are now large signs that I see everyday saying "We can't hurt anymore. Please let Star come home, no questions asked". Hopefully Star will be safely returned. We'll keep you updated.

Getting back to houses, we then started looking at the insides of them with our realtor. After three rounds (the interested ones, the maybes, and the it'll-take-some-fixing-up options) we hadn't found any that seemed right. Actually, what we did find is that none of them felt right at the time, but as we thought about some of them more, they became more appealing. Every single time, though, right when we decided to take another look, the house would go under contract. Frustrated and stressed, we knew we had exhausted all the options on the market at the time, and now we had to sit and wait for something new to come up.

Happily, it didn't take long. A listing appeared one Monday morning that looked promising, so we met during lunch and drove by it (no pants-pictures this time). We liked the neighborhood (it's not that far from where we are now), so we set up an appointment to view it that evening. The inside of the house turned out to be nice, and we both knew it was at the very top of our list. So, after sleeping on it, and taking another look at it the next day, we made an offer! They accepted, and we have since been subject to a whirlwind of inspectors, mortgage brokers, and attorneys.

And speaking of inspectors, it's time to talk about ladders. Specifically, the Little Giant. If you haven't seen the infomercial, the Little Giant is 24 ladders in one compact, easy-to-use design! It actually looks like it could be really useful, and I mention it here because our inspector had one. Being first-time home buyers, there are a lot of things we don't have that we'll need to buy, with one of them being a ladder. And seeing that a professional home inspector uses the Little Giant may have convinced me to get one. Incidentally, Wendy and I smiled when we saw the inspector using a Little Giant. Sometime last year, after seeing the infomercial, Wendy was telling me about it and referred to it as "The Mighty Dwarf" when she couldn't remember the real name. The Mighty Dwarf is such an absurd name for a ladder that it stuck.

There are several other things that have been going on recently not related to houses. One of them is the beginning of spring! Yep, we have officially made it through our first Chicago winter, and the general consensus among the natives is that it was a very mild one. I can say, though, that it got much colder here than it did in Colorado. The snowfall seemed to be about the same, but it wasn't nearly as windy here as I thought it would be.

And not only is it the spring season, but it's also the tax season as well. For the first time, we took our taxes to a tax preparer, and wow, it was incredibly easy! The entire process took about an hour, the people were nice (it was interesting to see that most of the preparers were older women), and they even offered us homemade cookies while we waited! It was a bit expensive, since we had income from two states, but it was totally worth it, and I have a feeling we'll be doing it again next year.

As Wendy mentioned below, we became trained weather spotters! We went to a 2 hour presentation on weather spotting and learned all about things like shelf clouds, scuds, and gustnados. It also covered the formation of severe storms, what to look for, the best position to be in when watching a storm, and what type of information to provide when reporting severe weather. It was cool! Oh, and also they had a picture of one of the two known photographs of a tornado in McHenry county. So they're definitely not as common here as they are in Oklahoma and Kansas, but Illinois has definitely had severe tornados in the past.

And finally, a couple of Friday evenings ago Wendy and I met our good friend Sir Austin of Tahlequah in downtown Chicago. He was attending a law conference and had some free time, so we took a train down and met him. It was a milestone for Wendy and I in that we took our first cab ride together. We had planned to eat at Pizzeria Uno's, but 7 o'clock on a Friday night does not make for short lines at classic Chicago restaurants. So we went to California Pizza Kitchen instead (no waiting!), and then spent the rest of the evening chatting at a nearby Borders. By the time we got back on a train to head home, we'd taken a total of four taxis, so we feel fairly confident that we can handle it now. It was cool to see Austin again and we both enjoyed hanging out and catching up with him.

The Details, Part 1

So, if you are young, and looking for a house, there is one question you should be prepared to answer repeatedly. Your real estate agent will ask you. ("Are you thinking of starting a family?") Your inspector will ask you. ("Going to start a family next?") Your mortgage broker will, too. ("And are there children in your future?") Coworkers. Friends. The woman who cuts your hair. There is no one who won't ask you this. "Well, we'll see!" has been our standard response - consider this a public service announcement so that you can all be prepared with a politely vague answer of your own. (Unless, of course, you have a politely specific answer you would prefer to use.)

Now that we've found a house, though, everything has been happening so quickly that there's really not much time for idle questions anymore. I don't think I realized quite how speedily everything was going to happen - we got the listing for the house on Monday morning, drove by and liked it during lunch, and saw it after work Monday evening. Tuesday, we went back for a second look during lunch and made an offer, and we had a verbal agreement before we went to bed that night. By dinnertime Wednesday, we had a signed contract. Since then, we've also applied (and been approved) for a mortgage, had a home inspection ("solid as a rock," according to our inspector), a radon test (well within normal levels), and requested that the sellers fix a few things from the inspection report. It's felt like more, honestly. From now until closing (four weeks from today), though, apparently we pretty much just wait. And presumably pack.

But wait! There's more! Since we last managed to update:

- We've ridden the train down to Chicago to see Austin, who was in town for a law journal conference. We had a really nice time eating dinner and hanging out, and it was great to get to visit with him.

- I've managed to read most of The Count of Monte Cristo - I'm somewhere around the 950-page mark (which leaves a mere 300 or so to go), and the Count really is remarkably Batman-esque. I'm enjoying it.

- I am now a trained weather spotter! The National Weather Service held training at my college last night, and since I was working anyway, I sat in. Randy came, too - they will be mailing us official weather spotter certificates.

- We have been witnesses to a dognapping! I think Randy is writing about this in greater detail, but let me just mention that the missing dog is a small, white fluffy dog. The people whose house we are buying have a small, white fluffy dog. Can this be coincidence, or are they moving because they need to get out of town, quick? (Actually, I'm pretty sure that it can be a coincidence, and I'm very sorry for the people whose dog is missing.)

- Spring has, so to speak, sprung. Or it has at least begun to - this is a later spring than I'm used to, but the days are finally beginning to noticeably lengthen and it was warm enough yesterday to open the windows for a while.

I can hear Randy writing the rough equivalent of a novel for his post, so maybe I'll just stop here. I expect that between the two of us, you will be more than sufficiently filled in on everything!

And now for something completely different

On Monday of this week, the high was 55° and the weather was gorgeous. Today, the high was 4. Wind chills last night hit -35. Needless to say, that's really cold.

In the past, January and February have always seemed like the dreariest months of the year, and the kind of weather we're having today only serves to bolster that. But one particular sign has been very encouraging over the past few weeks: the days are getting longer, and there's now some daylight left when I'm driving home from work. Living in the northern parts of the country definitely makes you notice, and appreciate, the amount of sunlight that you get.

While we were making dinner this evening, I started to tell Wendy about a Rolling Stones song I heard recently that I'd never heard before, but really liked. She stopped, looked up, and started singing But don’t play with me, ’cause you’re playing with fire, which was exactly the song I was about to describe to her. It turns out that one morning earlier this week we were both driving to work at the same time, listening to the same radio station, heard the same song, which neither of us had heard before, and both really liked it. That cracked us up. As you can probably guess, the song is called Play With Fire.

In other news, we're looking into buying a house in the coming months! Housing prices in this part of Illinois are still fairly expensive since we're close to Chicago, but it's not quite as expensive as the Boulder area in Colorado.

And, finally, I finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo several nights ago. It was incredibly good, and I found it interesting to note just how much the Count is like a 19th century Batman (or more correctly that Batman is a 20th century Count): Tragedy befalls both of them in their youth, they disappear into the Orient where they develop their skills, they re-emerge into society incredibly wealthy and mysterious, they both have hidden caves, both are masters of disguise, some people think they're vampires, and, most importantly, they both have an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. Despite the similarities, though, I would venture to suggest that both characters are unique and unforgettable. Bravo Messieurs Dumas and Kane, on jobs well done!

Radar Love

A low pressure system from Oklahoma is making its way across Illinois this evening. The current forecast is for 3-5 inches of snow, which will make it the first substantial snowfall of the season.


Also, this is too funny: The city of Bryan, TX, decided to spice up their yearly water quality report by making it into a calendar with pictures of their water service employees. Check out some of the images here. My favorite is the guy sitting on the toilet.

Miscellanea

Not much has been going on since I returned from Texas; Wendy and I have both been working away this past week. So here are some random thoughts and observations to pass the time:

-- Thunderstorms rolled through Illinois yesterday, bringing rain for most of the day, along with a brief shower of nickel-sized hail for good measure. Last we heard, this part of Illinois is still about a foot below normal rainfall.

-- Kudos to the Kansas Jayhawks, who snapped a 36-game losing streak to Nebraska. Our friend George claims to have helped in the victory, by posing for a picture in the Kansas paper that, he says, "angered Nebraska so much they couldn't focus on the game."

-- Wendy has discovered a back way to get to work that shaves about 5 minutes off the commute. Not only is it quicker, but it's much more scenic, too. The road twists and turns, and is lined with large trees whose branches hang over the road. Judging by the number of palatial houses along the way, I would also say it's a fairly well-to-do area.

-- A small shopping center about a mile from our house recently opened up. So far it has a 7-11 and a Rosati's pizza. We tried Rosati's last week and we both enjoyed it. Hopefully it won't become too much of a temptation having it so close!

Employed!

I am very pleased and excited to announce that I am once again a productive member of society: I got the job! I will be a conference center assistant in the Continuing Education department of a nearby college. It's part-time, and will mainly be event planning and coordination. My first day will be next Wednesday. Thanks for all the good wishes, everyone!

Also, the weather today was fall-like and gorgeous. Earlier this week, we were back up into the high 80s, but today was mid-50s and delightful. Hurray for October!

A gentleman's account of the weather

Autumn has arrived. It greeted us yesterday with a cold, rainy, and windy evening. We gladly welcomed it; the summer was warmer than expected, and led to much anticipation of a change in season.

I checked the weather as soon as I awoke this morning and discovered even further evidence of Autumn's arrival:

Hot Air For a Cool Breeze

Apparently we brought our drought karma with us from Colorado, because it's still been very warm and dry here, with temperatures well above normal. This evening, though, a storm front blew through, bringing my favorite kind of weather. I love it when it gets cloudy, blustery, and cool right before a big storm. (As opposed to the oppressive, humid stillness you sometimes get instead, which I don't like at all.)

By about 5 p.m., it was overcast, with the wind ruffling the surface of the pond and tossing all the leaves on the trees around. I opened the windows, and as we ate dinner, we watched what looked like a heck of a storm roll in, turning the sky dark and sending lightning bolts flying. We could smell the ozone and humidity. The wind kept picking up, at times blowing the reeds around the pond flat against the ground. The weather people reported that there was a severe thunderstorm warning, and we were eagerly anticipating it.

We got no rain at all.

The storm blew right by without stopping. At least tomorrow is supposed to be about 15 degrees cooler, much more in line with average temperatures for this time of year. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping it stays nice for my birthday next week, but I'm afraid it won't.

Edited to add: Randy and I just got back from a walk around our neighborhood. Part of it is still under construction, and it was windy enough earlier that a Porta-Potty set up for the construction workers had blown over. That will be an unpleasant surprise for someone to find in the morning.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, is five months an unreasonably long time to wait for a dentist appointment? My eye doctor saw me the same day, my medical doctor saw me the next week, but my dentist can't see me until February. That seems way too long to have to wait, but maybe it's actually par for the course.

News and Notes

The Job Search
Unfortunately, Wendy didn't get the job she interviewed for. We're both disappointed. She was incredibly well qualified, and the interview went really well, but they decided to hire someone from within the department. Something else will come along, though, so we'll keep our eyes open.

New Orleans
Let me say first of all that I'm very glad that supplies have finally made their way to New Orleans. I'm extremely appalled, though, that it took ALMOST 5 DAYS for them to get there!! It's very, very wrong for that to happen.

The Weather
Wendy heard recently that this has been the 3rd driest summer ever for this part of Illinois. It certainly appears that way: I've been driving by acres of brown and withered crops on my way to and from work.

College Football
I'm still struggling with how sports fits into the national scene right now, but the fact is that the college football season has started. These are the games we're looking forward to this weekend:
* OU vs TCU: What will our offense look like? More importantly, how good is our defense?
* Notre Dame vs Pitt: Charlie Weis vs Dave Wannstedt. Whose coaching skills will reign supreme?
* Miami vs FSU: Usually a good contest, but why make this the first game of the season? It would probably be a better game if both teams had a few weeks of experience first.

The Local Sports Team
The Chicago Bears' preseason has been a trainwreck to say the least. Their starting QB got injured and is out for the season; their backup QB turned out to be so bad he's fallen off the depth chart; so their only option now is give the helm to Kyle Orton, a rookie QB. Not an auspicious start. At least we get to watch former Sooners Mark Bradley and Tommie Harris play.

On Instant Replay
I have to say I'm not a big fan of instant replay, and I'm a little sad to see it appearing at the college level. It slows down the game and seems to change the way that referees officiate.

Sometimes, we're a little lame
The light in our loft hasn't been working the past few weeks, and we were really stumped as to why. There are 3 lights in the light fixture, and they had all stopped working at the same time. It didn't seem likely that they'd all burned out together, and they didn't even look burned out. All the other electrical outlets in the loft worked, so we didn't think it was circuit-related (but we're not electricians, either). Finally, today, Wendy solved the mystery. There's a second switch for that light in the loft that we'd totally forgotten about, and it was neither on nor off, but stuck right in the middle. Wendy flipped the switch and presto! The lights now work. I think we're both a little embarrassed that it took us several weeks to figure it out.

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.

Dune, Green Tea, and the Gap

One morning about a month ago, as the packers were just starting to pack up our belongings in Colorado, I realized I should find something to pass the time until they were done. I remembered a copy of Dune I'd bought once but never read (I did read Dune back in junior high but didn't recall much of it). So I grabbed the book before it got packed away, and started reading. It was very good.

I was close to the end of Dune by the time we arrived in McHenry. So we stopped at a used book store where I was able to find the next four books in the series. I paid for the books in cash, and as the lady handed me the change, a rogue dime fell out, bounced off my hand, and plopped right into her cup of green tea. It was quite funny, but also a bit awkward and embarrasing. She didn't seem too upset; I apologized and Wendy and I went on our way.

A couple of nights ago I was flipping through "God Emperor of Dune" (which I got at the bookstore) and came across a receipt. It's from the Gap, and is dated June 14, 1985. Just for fun, here's a picture:



Anyway, Abby is now here, and the weather has happily warmed up (a few nights ago parts of the Chicago suburbs got down to 21 degrees, setting the all-time low for the month of May in all of Illinois. It only got down to 35 where we live). We're planning a trip to Chicago this weekend, so we'll hopefully have more things to post after that.

PS - Happy Birthday, Joy!

Pizza Night

So my first week at work is in the books, and it went quite well. All of my co-workers are very friendly and helpful, and they've kept me busy with plenty of things to do. By the end of my first day, I had a bug report assigned to me and I had started tracking it down (I found it and fixed it the next morning). There's a huge amount of stuff that I have to learn, but that's actually a good thing. After just one week, I can say that this job is already a lot more interesting than my old one.

When I got home from work this evening I discovered that Wendy had made sugar cookies with chocolate frosting to celebrate the completion of my first week at work. They are quite tasty. For dinner we made our own pizzas, and they also turned out to be very good.

The weather turned a bit gloomy today, with cloudy skies and rain (and a chance of snow tonight). After spending 3 years in sunny Colorado, this kind of weather is a refreshing change. Wendy saw recently that Miami, FL gets 236 days of sunshine a year. That's nothing -- Boulder, CO gets 300 days of sunshine each year. After a quick check on google, we also discovered that Boulder gets more sunshine than San Diego!

Finally, we haven't forgotten about posting photos of our place now that we're unpacked. We'll try to get some up this weekend.

Cheers!