Happy New Year and all that jazz. Monday night headed up to Lakemoor to Missy's, Lisa's friend, for New Years Eve. Picked up McDonald's for dinner on the way up. It was snowing, but it wasn't too bad for driving. I've been in that neck of the woods before, just never went that way to get there, up 53 north to 12 north to 120. First time going by Deer Park, which is a nice area. Played Celebrities, had some champagne, did some talking, had a good time. Finally headed back around 3:30 yesterday, stopping for lunch at Panera Bread before heading down Lake Cook Road to 94 instead. Ended up doing some grocery shopping at Dominick's, which was very empty. Kinda nice doing grocery shopping when it's empty. Also, because of the route we took, ended up driving by 3 shopping malls that had Apple Stores, Deer Park, Northbrook, and Old Orchard. I find that amusing. Tracy made some chicken soup last night, watched some Two Guys and a Girl. Wore my new wool pants since it's freezing today. Doesn't block the wind as much as I thought they would. Might have to just go with some long johns instead.

So, Jesse told us on New Years Eve about this website, Calorie Count. And now Tracy and I are addicted. Go figure. I give myself till February until I've given up trying to keep it updated. But it'll be interesting until then. It does help, to actually keep track of what you eat. In other New Years resolution type stuff, I reorganized a couple cabinets in the kitchen, so instead of just shoving things onto shelves after grocery shopping, there's a little order to the madness. Next up would be the spice and oils and sauces cabinet. Tracy made meatloaf for dinner last night, and leftovers for lunch today. I'm also trying to stay hydrated as well as I did while I was on the Master Cleanse. Just watched some more Two Guys and a Girl. No watchable reruns were even on last night. A bunch of the episodes are out of order, so that's a little annoying. And Tracy and I are wondering whether to go for a CD or go with Apple stock with some Christmas money. The Apple stock is tempting, but no guaranteed. High risk, high reward.

So I've kind of been fighting off a cold for the past couple of days, and well, it's almost done with, (knocking on wood). I actually thought I would have gotten worse, but I actually got better instead. Go figure. I think the whole hydrating thing helps a bunch. Not to mention I think it helps with my weight. Tracy made steaks for dinner last night, with some broccoli, which was awesome. She just used the grill pan, no oven to finish it off, and they were cooked perfectly. Watched random stuff on TV, including the end of Music and Lyrics. Which was funny because Tracy was just chatting me about that song yesterday during work. Going to try out the Muvico Rosemont 18 tomorrow to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Already bought tickets, and picked out seats, since we're going with the VIP reserved seating. Looking forward to that, the 4K Sony digital projectors, the love seats, and the food, which include Dungeness crab quesadillas and Parmesan-Truffle fries. Hopefully the experience is as good as it sounds. And then I'll have a new favorite theater.

Ok, I've got a new favorite theater. Muvico Rosemont 18. It's awesome. The Sony 4K digital projectors. Premier section: reserved seating, 21 and over, concession serves hot food (like Parmesan truffle fries) and alcoholic beverages, and huge comfy love seats. Seriously awesome. Totally worth the extra costs. Too bad it's not that close. Friday night Tracy just made chicken adobo for dinner, and we watched TV. Saturday had a haircut, then went out to Woodfield before going to the movie theater. Sunday watched Unaccompanied Minors, did the weekly shopping down Broadway, and did some work on the bikes. I should be back to commuting by bike pretty soon. Need to put some handlebar tape on the Sprint and I could probably start using the mtb since I put slicks on it already, except I still need a rear shifter. I did put inline brake levers on the road bike, so I can brake from an upright position. That's pretty cool. But while I was getting my hands dirty with the bikes, I wondered what it'd be like if Apple made bikes, and how easy it might be to work on them. Even though they're pretty simple machines, I'm sure there are ways to make it easier to use or maintain, of course with a cost increase. Oh, and I've been uploading my old email to the Google Apps account for abando.com. I've got archives going back to the end of 1998, which is pretty cool. Headed out to Boundary Tavern & Grill tonight to watch the BCS National Championship game with the boys.

Odd, thought I had updated the Memex with yesterday's current events, but I guess not. Anyway, beer, food, and company was good last night at Boundary Tavern & Grill, not so much for the game though. Sorry Russell. Got to see some people I haven't seen in a while, like Bryan and Bjorn. Bryan was actually nice enough to give me a lift home. Other than that, not much. Waiting for Macworld San Francisco 2008 Keynote next week. Watching Eureka on the iPhone on the commute. That's about it. Oh, RCN might be switching over to SDV, but I might have skipped over that, and so we might be out of luck until we get a new box. Whoops. I'll have to call in for that one. The good news will be when the switch is done we'll have more HD channels, including the Food Network and Universal. Doesn't really bother me too much since I'm all about the Apple TV anyway.

Ok, so the RCN SDV switch, or maybe not SDV switch isn't happening till January 15 or February 9, but either way, we need a new DVR, as the one we have is pretty much gone. Although I might have broken it myself. I think the coax cable was a little loose, which didn't seem to be the problem because it could still get basic cable and local HDTV stations. Just no cable guide. Tried the trick of resetting and downloading the firmware, but ran into some issues. Hopefully, they'll just switch the 6412 for a 3416 or something at the service call scheduled for Thursday early evening. But I think I'd be fine without cable. Really. The Apple TV works out pretty well for me. Tracy had Sunday's episode of Desperate Housewives on the DVR, but in case it can't get fixed, I bittorrented it, converted it with the turbo.264 and Perian, and put it on the Apple TV. Super easy. Probably should have just bought it from iTunes Store. Found out about Motor Row Lofts in the South Loop from YoChicago Article, and Tracy and I are hoping to go check it out this weekend. She also made dinner (pork chops and green beans) last night. Did some exercises, (adding the jump rope actually turns it into a real workout), and watched some Two Guys and a Girl.

I get to leave work early to be home for the RCN Tech visit this afternoon. Yay. Otherwise, just another Wednesday yesterday. Tracy made a chestnut soup and a chicken asparagus pasta for dinner. We watched Two Guys and a Girl. That's about it. Bus riding is always interesting. I usually take the third bus that comes in the morning, as the first is packed, the second still has standing room but the third I'm usually able to get a seat. I usually only wait for the second bus on the way home. In the mornings it's always fun to see 4 152 Addison buses starting their routes at Addison and Lake Shore, oh, right after each other. I always thought the bunching occurs due to traffic and having to pick people up, but no, there's definitely some routes where all the buses leave together at the same time. I noticed the 147's going down Lake Shore today, first one was packed, the one pretty much right behind it? Available seats. Can't wait until they enable GPS tracking via the website for all buses.

That was quick. RCN Tech came 8 minutes early. Replaced the old DVR, a Motorola Dual-Tuner DVR High-Definition Set-Top DCT6412 with a new Motorola DCH3416 Host Set-top. Took like 10-15 minutes. He also checked signal strength I'm guessing. I was back up and running by like 5:15pm. Awesome. Wish I could switch my work hours, and work earlier in the day, and leave earlier. The commute was just so much nicer. Whole Foods did have some sort of food, welcome to the neighborhood thing in the lobby last night as well. Tracy snagged some samples, not a meal, just a taste. I did some exercises, then got to make macaroni & cheese and kielbasa for dinner. Finished watching Knocked Up and watched some more Two Guys and a Girl and the episode of Desperate Housewives. Found out that Tracy's gonna start working weekends, starting next weekend, so might head out to Woodstock after checking out the Motor Row Lofts on this Saturday instead of next weekend.

Friday night Tracy went out to her parents house to visit and so she wouldn't have to deal with Friday night traffic into the city. She did bring back some lumpia and some groceries. I just had some leftovers and watched Resident Evil and The Fast and the Furious, sort of a preview of this coming weekend when she's working. Saturday we had breakfast at the North Coast Cafe, which was ok, then looked around for best rates on Certificate of Deposits, and ended up scheduling a financial adviser meeting with Chase for today. This was before we went down to take a look at the Motor Row Lofts, which are pretty sweet, and might have kickstarted the real estate process for us. After that, we came home for a bit before heading out to dinner at Coast, which was pretty good. I'd never had fatty yellowtail before. We picked up some sake since it's BYOB, so it was a pretty short night for us. Watched some Two Guys and a Girl before bed. Sunday drove out to Woodstock to visit my parents, and I upgraded my dad's iMac go Leopard and iLife '08 and iWork '08, and removed their old email accounts to the non-Google Apps abando.com. Had some good food, talked to my brother, brought some food back, and I watched Clerks II. Also watched some football.

Followed the There's Something in the Air (Macworld San Francisco 2008 Keynote). Nothing got me too excited. Although I haven't seen a MacBook Air in person yet. I'm surprised that leaked though. Apple Stock as expected tanked today. I'd say the biggest surprise? Full studio support for movie rentals. I wonder if they'll open it up for TV Show rentals. I think that'd take a big chunk of NetFlix subscribers. Not sure what pricing you should have for it though. Want a Time Capsule. Glad I'm getting free software updates for the iPhone and the Apple TV. Otherwise, eh. Went and had some introductory meetings with a Mortgage Officer and a Financial Advisor at Chase. Opened our eyes a bit more. We're probably going to go with Lisa and Ryan's advisor. Find out more after we meet with him at some point. We are going to get a find out how much we can afford, what we can get preapproved for. You know, so we have a price range to work with. We finally finished up Two Guys and a Girl last night, and it's a little sad not having Pete and Berg and Sharon and Johnny to watch every night anymore. Tracy made dinner, some pasta with some of my mom's chicken that we brought back.

Yes, I want a MacBook Air. No, I don't need one. Moving on. Apple stock continues to tank. Sign of a bigger trend, or just a good buying opportunity? Good question. Watched the pilot of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles last night. Not sure I like the action for an hour show. I seem to look for humor in my TV shows. I'll give it a couple more episodes before I give up on it. Finished up transcoding season 1 of Alias and plowing through Season 2. Upgraded the iPhone to 1.1.3 last night. I actually find the customization of the home screens a little annoying, mainly because it's in a flow grid, and I can't place icons wherever I want. Otherwise, the location mapping feature in Google Maps is pretty darn cool. Also working on getting any intros and guided tours onto the Apple TV so I can see it all pretty like. Hopefully the Keynote will get processed as a podcast soon so that can get downloaded.

So, watching Cashmere Mafia last night, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Notes from the Underbelly, someone from Kitchen Confidential was on each of those. The owner's daughter on Cashmere Mafia, the sous-chef on Terminator, and the female head chef on Notes. Oh, and the rookie on Bones as the psychologist. It's good to see them getting work, since Kitchen Confidential was so good. Speaking of that, odd to see Anthony Bourdain back on the Food Network with A Cook's Tour, except I think it's all old stuff back from 2001-2. I wonder why they're bringing that back? Otherwise on the TV and the DVR are house hunting shows, what you get for the money, stuff oh HGTV and stuff. There's a lot of shows out there like that. Definitely. Speaking of which, we're meeting with another financial advisor probably this weekend. Kind of growing up I think. Also finished up watching Eureka on the iPhone on the ride home yesterday, so I'm back to actually reading via the Sony Reader on my commute.

Need some coffee. Last night Tracy made pork, lima beans and asparagus for dinner. We watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which got a lot better in the second episode. So it's still on the watch list. Downloaded the podcast version of the Macworld San Francisco 2008 Keynote, turned it into a regular Quicktime movie so I could put it with the other Apple related videos when synced to the Apple TV. I'll have to watch it this weekend sometime. Wore long johns to work today, because it's supposed to be freezing, but it's not that bad. Of course I say this before leaving for the day. Dinner with the potential financial advisor at the Chicago Firehouse Restaurant on Saturday and chili and football watching at Bryan's on Sunday.

Leftovers for dinner Friday night, watched It Could Happen to You and 30 Rock after exercises. I did get intrigued about Tabata, from this blog from the Ultimate Talk RSS feed. 20 seconds of exercise, 10 seconds rest, for 8 cycles. Sounds simple. Haven't tried it though. Saturday, started redoing all the wiring for the home theater, which meant I did some rewiring for the computer network as well. Didn't finish up that project until Sunday. Did go with Russell to Hot Doug's for the first time. And yes, it was everything I heard about and more. Awesome place. Hung out at Russell's for a bit, got to see Marla before getting a ride home. Then, dinner with the financial advisor, or maybe it's more like a financial planner, at the Chicago Firehouse Restaurant. Good place. A little drafty, but good. Sunday wanted to use the blueberries, so had to do some grocery shopping for supplies (just milk and butter). Made a blueberry loaf to bring over to Bryan's, and took the 152 over. Hung out, caught up a little, and the blueberry loaf went over well. The chili was good, the tres leche from Pierre's Bakery was awesome, and then Bryan made a fabulous bread pudding. Probably the best I've every had. It wasn't too dense to too sweet for my tastes. Just about perfect. Oh, and watched some football. Caught the 80 to get home. About 30 minutes each way. Oh, and restarted the document filing project from long ago, since we need to compile stuff for the meeting on Tuesday night. Oh, and selling the iMac G5 to Bryan to use with his new iPhone, which makes Tracy happy because I get rid of another computer from the house. Real Estate for us continues to be a moving target. We've pretty much completely written off Motor Row Lofts due to the neighborhood, as walking around is too important to us. We do like our current neighborhood, and if only someone would buy and convert the warehouse on Broadway just north of Addison to lofts, we'd be set. Otherwise, maybe no to a loft. As always, wait and see.

While gathering documentation and statements for the meeting with our new financial planner tonight, it was enlightening. I actually looked at the Social Security mailing, and it showed my taxable income going all the way back to 1994. That's a long time ago. And I'm continuing to push my email archives up to Google Apps, which is fairly slow going, but I have stuff from '98 and '99, which I decided to peruse. That's a trip down memory lane. Also it'll come in handy for my Ultimate Timeline. Lots of ultimate related emails from back then. And, I think that started more reminiscing so I started reading my own Musings from the start. That's just good stuff right there. I actually miss how I used to write, but don't want to be what I was in order to write like that. If that makes any sense. So with selling the iMac to Bryan, I've got an LCD arm that needs a computer. Also threw in the old school bluetooth mouse and keyboard. So less junk, or more like making room for new junk. The Cube is now just sitting, powered off, as a bookend. But just have the Mac mini and the Macbook left. And I think the mini is overheating, but I need to start logging temps in order to test that out.

Yup, found a couple really cool web things. I've always wanted to make a 3-d web browser, where you travel through space to get to the next site. You could use traceroute to find the spots along the way, and then use some db somewhere to map IP blocks to geographic locations. Someone's done it, at least with traceroute and Google Maps. See Visual TraceRt Tool. It's pretty sweet. Hmm, maybe a Firefox extension, oh, and Google Earth, that can do flythroughs, hmmm. The other thing? EveryBlock. Hyperlocal news aggregation. Seriously cool. Other than that, meeting with Jason went well last night. We're apparently in pretty good shape. So that's good. Had some frozen pizza for dinner last night. Watched Carpoolers, and some real estate TV stuff. Also trying to figure out what's wrong with the Mac mini, and it might be EyeTV issues, probably from trying to use old preferences. We'll see if I can get around those.

Late night last night, with having to do some work after hours. Ugh. Tracy made crab cakes and kani su for dinner. Watched some real estate and Cashmere Mafia. I also watched Art School Confidential. Oh, and did my exercises as well. Still fighting with the firewire enclosure and the Mac mini, although I've narrowed it down to the enclosure, since the drives on the first bridgeboard aren't mounting. Ugh. Should have just gone with more Mac friendly devices. Might have to break out the Cube, because I don't think that guy had any issues connecting to the enclosure. The Bus has been interesting the last couple of days. Long waits before an available bus comes by. On the way home last night we stopped and picked up riders from another bus that was stopped on Lower Wacker before Lake Shore Drive. Not sure what happened there. This morning the bus didn't get on to LSD at Belmont, opting instead to go down to Fullerton. And that was after waiting 30 minutes for a bus with available seating. Lots of people walking North, hoping to get to a bus before it filled up. Probably the most people I've seen yet. Awesome.

Weekend. Awesome. So the firewire enclosure is just not making me happy. I was hoping using the Cube would make all the drives show up, but that's not the case at all. One of the bridgeboards definitely is sketchy. Wonder if I should just replace the board, or switch concepts entirely and go with individual enclosures. Hmmm, I'll just spend the weekend trying to get it to work again. And then make a decision. I also need to do an extended hardware test on the Mac mini, as it seems to be freezing up around 9:48am. I can tell because I get it to show the clock in the screen saver. And that's the time it shows when I get home from work. So the computer problems mean that I haven't been transcoding anything for the Apple TV, can't really sync up the iPhone because music/TV shows/movies are all on the enclosure served from the mini. So that's awesome. Tracy made Salisbury turkey steak, mashed beans and green beans for dinner last night. Watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I'm starting to enjoy more, and most of High Fidelity. Not much planned for the weekend, maybe check out some open houses, take a walk around the neighborhood looking at real estate, that's about it.

Not much went on Friday night, but Saturday made waffles, watched some movies, and went out walking. Checked out neighborhood real estate, got some coffee, stopped off at the Gap, picked up another blazer on sale, came back then headed out to try and catch a movie. Apparently, a lot of other people wanted to catch a movie on Saturday night as well. Wanted to see 27 Dresses, but sold out, so we just decided to go to dinner instead. Tracy had a craving for a French bistro/cafe, I think from watching A Good Year, so I suggested Brasserie Jo. So we started heading over, but checked out places along the way, and came upon Kevin's, which reminded us of Nolita, so we tried it out. Eh. Then homeward bound. Sunday, more walking around, found a new place to get pastrami reubens, The Bagel - Restaurant and Deli, picked up a book from Borders, did some grocery shopping. Tracy made BBQ ribs in the oven that were pretty good. Oh, also fixed the Mac mini. I think Perian was part of the problem. I did clean out the insides of the firewire enclosure, so that might have helped as well. Also added smcFanControl2 to spin up the fans, and that helped with the random reboots while transcoding. Also finally looked up Handbrake issues, and it's the queue that's causing the problems. So, the mini is back up and running and stable.

I've taken to updating my Facebook status all the time. Partly because I can because the iPhone Facebook website is super easy to update, and, well, just for giggles. Since they did away with the default "is" part of the status, I'm trying to be more active in my descriptions, like writing a resume, but a side effect is that it seems like I'm writing in the third person, which I am. But it's odd nonetheless. Anyway, I just updated my status to updating Facebook to writing about Facebook. Which is awesome. Tracy made chili last night for dinner, and she'll be eating it for the next week or so. I finally got around to trying out a recipe for pumpkin loaf, so I don't have to buy it from Starbucks anymore. I've got 3 to try, and this first one is good, but not dark or dense enough. I am still working on Book 1 of The Baroque Cycle. Ugh. Can't wait until I'm done, and then I can move on to something that doesn't take any thought. Maybe some Harry Potter, or Ludlum. Oh, and I did transcode The Freshest Kids and Scratch for watching on the iPhone. Might do the same to The Unit, and get Mad Men as well.

Walked by a couple other properties on the way home from work yesterday, 3052 N. Sheffield and 831 W. Buckingham. Both pretty nice. Working on getting a mortgage pre-approval and finding a real estate agent. Then comes the legwork. Gotta love the internet though. Best real estate search site so far? Urban Real Estate. Block Shopper is also pretty sweet, as they include market time in their search results. Of course, I don't know exactly what market time is, but it's probably days. Anyway, found another one at 645 W. Briar Pl.. That sounds interesting. Aside from that, watched more real estate tv shows, Tracy made a version of chicken marsala, and that's about it. Since the queue doesn't work in Handbrake, I figured I'd try writing shell scripts to use the command line version, and just need to find the time to create them. Then it'd off to the races for the rest of Alias to finish transcoding.

I'm not good at tagging, adding keywords, categorizing. Makes it hard to look at the data or content that I create. Anyway, just figured I should start looking into adding keywords to the photos in iPhoto, and get around to uploading more photos. Haven't done it in a while. Pretty much was looking for a more up to date photo to use for my Facebook profile. So walked by 645 W. Briar Pl. last night, and it's in a great location. Down the street from Cupcakes, and we've been doing a lot of walking/shopping down Broadway. Otherwise, it looks a little smaller from the street than the other places. Actually meeting with a real estate agent on Monday night, and playing phone tag with another agent, but both our phones seem to go straight to voicemail, which is weird. Of course, AT&T is having some issues, which means I can't use Visual Voicemail, which is just a hassle. Anyway, hopefully we'll finally get in touch, and we can sit down and meet. Or, maybe we'll just go with the one we were able to get a hold of. I was surprised that it snowed pretty much all day today downtown, but pretty light stuff. Snowstorm tonight, and I need to guess which way (Bus or El) will get me home with the least amount of aggravation. I did catch the 3rd of 3 135's this morning, but then we proceeded to sit at Belmont for like 10 minutes or more, probably to get back on schedule. Stupid. Tracy made stir fry last night, I brought it in for lunch, and we watched House last night.

Ah, February. What a month. Some of my worst months were Februaries, but I'm sure some of my best were as well. Would be interesting to plot over time. Anyway, another month down in 2008. Last night was going to take the el home, but saw that traffic was moving on LaSalle, so walked over and took the 135. Big mistake. 1:45 later, I go grocery shopping. There was a point that the bus seemed to break down on lower Wacker just before getting onto lower Lake Shore Drive. That would have been awesome to deal with. But some revving of the engine, gears engage, and we made our way slowly North. Picked up a premarinated pork roast and zucchini and squash for dinner, and put it in the oven, since Tracy had a 2 hour drive home herself. Watched some real estate shows, of course. Actually have meetings set up with some real estate agents next week. Hopefully we'll pick one right away, and go from there. Got to come in a little late today, because of the weather. Not much planned for the weekend, maybe get out and see Russell, but just gonna be Tracy and I for the Super Bowl, since she's working.

Go watch this now. Yes, it's a political speech set to music. Yes that, like Tracy said, automatically gives words more emotional weight. But the words themselves, well, wow. And yes, it took a music video to turn me on to Obama. Looks like he's a tech friendly candidate as well. So fitting that I see that the same day the Giants win the Super Bowl. Yes they can. That was a pretty exciting game. Annoying that the DVR stopped at the 3rd down of the Patriots last possession, and the overlap with the House recording missed the last 3 downs of the game, so Tracy and I missed the actual clock winding down. But still. Wow. Food was good, but not that good. Tracy and i were both disappointed overall with our culinary spheres. I'm definitely out of practice with my pastry making. That's sad. As for the rest of the weekend, watched a bunch of movies off the DVR, Three Kings, Breach, and The Lookout. Moved some stuff upstairs so the condo is a bit more open. That's pretty much it.

That's in reference to Super Tuesday and Mardi Gras falling on the same day. Planning on voting tonight, while my polling place is still in the building, that is, until I move, whenever that may be. Met with Adam Garvey, real estate agent with The Brad Lippitz Group, and arranged some showings on Saturday. Got flights booked for an anniversary vacation with the Cases. Had leftovers for dinner, watched Carpoolers and Welcome to the Captain. Started watching Scratch on the iPhone. Oh, and probably because of all the real estate, how to sell, tv shows we've been watching, we started rearranging living room furniture last night. Actually opened up the blinds last night as well, and all those windows does make the place look pretty big. And the piano and the tv limit furniture layout.

Meeting with Jason went well last night. Got through some stuff. Which is good. Weather never really got bad, so that was also good. That was pretty much the night. Tracy made some guacamole and some beef wellingtons for dinner. Watched some real estate tv shows, some cooking shows. This morning probably marks the third time in a row I've made it out the door only to see my bus pulling away from my stop. I could run for it, but that's not my style. Finished watching Scratch and started The Freshest Kids on the way in. It is really nice being able to watch stuff wherever I am. Very nice. Oh, played the lotto yesterday, didn't win. Jackpot's up to $122 million for Friday.

So Lent is here again. No meat yesterday, went with a tuna salad sandwich for lunch and a Margherita frozen pizza for dinner. Good thing to look forward to? Possibly more sushi in the next 40 days. Snowstorm fizzled a bit in Chicago proper. But my mom got stuck in Detroit on her way back from the Philippines, and my dad was on his way to the airport and turned back before they decided to shut down McHenry county because of whiteout conditions. And here in downtown Chicago? No problems. Actually, might have been the fastest bus ride home since the holiday inbetween week. So that was nice. Otherwise, watched some real estate tv shows, a bit of Employee of the Month. I did turn off Spotlight on the MacBook. I thought something was off, and I think my email archiving and migration might be cause it fits. And I think it's running cooler. Maybe. After I get all my email uploaded to Google Apps I'll turn it back on. I did finish transcoding Alias for the Apple TV. Next up I think is another set of movies, before moving on to all 10 seasons of Friends.

So mom got home really late on Wednesday night. That's good. Otherwise, not too much going on. Tracy made a goat cheese, sun dried tomato, roasted red pepper sauce for the pasta I boiled and the turkey brats I cooked. That was good. Watched Cashmere Mafia. And more real estate TV shows. I should get around to listing all the different ones, but there are so many of them. Tried using iTunes built in convert to iPod/iPhone transcoding from the Apple TV version of the transcoded DVDs, but takes way too long. I should compare it to a DVD transcode, but I'm pretty sure it's much slower. So that means double rips for when I want to bring stuff with me. Actually looking at 8 or so properties tomorrow, just a quick run through them all. Hopefully we'll find one we like. Otherwise, maybe do some painting of columns this weekend, but not much else. Lots of sleeping. Forgot to mention that RCN is switching to all digital, which means more HD channels, and that I need to get a STB for upstairs.

Well, after looking at 8 properties on Saturday, we're narrowing the field. So that's good. Also good is when Tracy and I both agree on the place we do like. Hopefully we'll get another showing in this week sometime. Definitely exciting. Friday night Tracy made vegetable risotto. We watched Eli Stone and Peggy Sue Got Married. Saturday went house hunting, had a late lunch/early dinner at Wilde Bar & Restaurant, and napped and watched some TV. Sunday ventured out into the cold, did some window shopping, dropped in on Russell, got a snack at Whole Foods, did some grocery shopping. Tracy made a pork loin for dinner. I ended up finally making Chocolate Mousse, but not early enough to eat. Waited 30 minutes for a bus this morning, and there was definitely a big backlog of people waiting for buses. Worse than the last time I saw a backup like that. Can't wait until the weather gets nice enough, or I get courageous enough to start biking again.

Picked up a bottle of wine, some strawberries on the way home from the Belmont stop last night. It'll be nice living closer to Kafka Wine Co in the future, hopefully. Also living closer to the Belmont stop as well, as I wouldn't be waiting for bunched up buses, instead waiting for bunched up el trains. Watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the last episode, and of course, some more Real Estate TV Shows, and Tracy made her eggplant and ground turkey lasagna. Updated the MacBook and Mac mini to 10.5.2. No problems there. Supposedly the new software update for the Apple TV is now available, so I'll have to download and try that out tonight. This morning, had a much better commute by leaving 15 minutes earlier, and managed to finally finish Quicksilver (book), and started up Candy Girl again, figured I needed something lighter to read. Not sure what's next after that, but definitely something light. Maybe Ender's Game? Oh, also picked up some chocolate Skittles, because I was intrigued. And now I never have to get them again. They ain't so good. I forget what chocolate flavored candy I do like, but that isn't it. Gotta remember to play Mega Millions tonight. $150 Million.

Updated the Apple TV to the Take 2 software upgrade. It's pretty sweet. Haven't tried the AirTunes support yet, but that was a nice pleasant surprise. Also haven't tried the HD rental yet, but looks really easy to do. Even to the point that I might look into getting rid of cable. Almost completely. At least the premium channels. I'm looking forward to the day when the weather is really bad, and there's nothing to watch, so we just pick a movie to rent and there it is. That's just slick. Also, there's support for 5.1 Dolby Digital surround. Just have to figure out how to get DVDs transcoded to take advantage of that. Figure I'll only transcode the movies that need the sound, like The Matrix. Tracy brought her car to the dealer last night, so was late getting back due to the all the traffic, which meant I had to make dinner. I went with chicken in a bag, a recipe by Jamie Oliver. It was ok, but I don't think I put enough salt, or thyme. It was a little too bland. Or maybe not enough butter. Today Tracy has to go and pick her car up (she got a rental from them in the meantime) so I get to make dinner again. I think it's gonna be stuff cabbage, if I can pull that off. Watched some TV last night as well.

Made dinner and another mess in the kitchen last night since Tracy had to go pick her car up. Made stuffed cabbage, or, in this case, meat wrapped in cabbage. It was pretty good. Sounds fabulous right now, since I'm fasting for a blood test tonight. It's a physical for life and disability insurance. Exciting. Can't wait to eat after that's over with. Watched Smallville, a little bit of Deja Vu, had Cocktail going in the background while cooking. Also made some Apricot Jell-O, and I might sneak in the pineapple or cranberry flavors this weekend. I'm definitely stocking up the movies for this weekend since Tracy's working. Looking forward to Starter for 10 which is playing on some HD channel, as recommended by Jenkins, and Crank is also premiering this weekend.

I don't like fasting. And I can't believe that I did the Master Cleanse, and I could never do it again. Anyway, physical went well, and I forgot I had to pee in a cup, which always takes me forever to do. If I had remember I would have been hydrating as soon as I got home. Tracy made steak and caprese for dinner. We just split a T-bone, Tracy got the tenderloin, I got the strip. Good stuff. Actually ate at the table without the TV on. Watched some Deja Vu and some House Hunters. Also downloaded and compiled the newest dev version of Handbrake to transcode The Matrix with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound for the Apple TV. Found out this morning that it works beautifully. Now that means retranscoding all the stuff I had, but I'm gonna wait for an official stable release for that. I think I have over 100 DVDs and a couple different TV seasons done, so that's exciting. Started reading Bringing Down the House again, which is great. Checking out 907 W. Roscoe again tonight. Plan on watching movies and doing a couple loads of laundry tomorrow, then out to dinner with my parents and Tracy, I think we're going to try Magnolia Cafe in Uptown. Sunday, lunch with Russell at Kuma's Corner, more movie watching.

Yup, I'm 31 now. Anyway, Friday night had a second showing of 907 W. Roscoe. Still really like the place. Forgot what we ended up having for dinner, something Tracy made of course. Watched some House, Cashmere Mafia and Eli Stone. Saturday sent Tracy off to work, and finally finished off Deja Vu while doing laundry, then Where the Money Is and Blood Diamond, which I really thought was a great movie. Made myself a nice traditional Filipino breakfast of Spam, eggs and fried rice. Parents came in to town and we went to mass before meeting up with Tracy after work to head up to Magnolia Cafe for dinner. Good stuff there. On Sunday, watched Gray Matters and Starter for 10 before biking off to meet Russell for lunch at Kuma's Corner. Had the Sloth, which was a burger with a Cuban sandwich on top. It was good. And yes, it knocked me out for about an hour after I got home. I did get caught in the rain on the way back, which was funny, because I started the ride with sunglasses on because it was sunny. Watched Crank, Tracy came back, started to go for a walk, but couldn't get over to the lake because the underpass was flooded, so just picked up some stuff from Whole Foods for dinner. Rented the HD version of No Reservations on the Apple TV, which was pretty seamless. Except that it didn't download completely by the time we started watching, so we had to wait at the last 15 minutes for it to finish downloading. Other than that, super easy and pretty nice quality. Tracy tried making homemade mac and cheese, but it didn't turn out like she wanted. I made her some chocolate covered strawberries, and I had a slice of Black Forest cake from Whole Foods. Overall a pretty good birthday. Right up my alley. Catchup dinner with Leah at Sai Cafe tonight. Oh, and happy birthday to my dad today.

Sai Cafe is so good. Seriously. Awesome. Good catching up with Leah. Walked all the way down to get the 151. It was pretty cold out. Helped my dad with setting up wireless at home, because Al and Nicole got him a new computer, a 20" iMac for his birthday. He moved the old iMac G5 to the kitchen for my mom, and at one point, I was iChating with them both, one in the study, one in the kitchen, and me in Chicago. We're supposed to do another iChat this weekend with my brother, so that'll be fun. And I was Remote Desktop'ed into the iMac G5, since that's were the ports are being forwarded to, but then used Leopard's built in Screen Sharing to connect to the new iMac to help out with some networking things. That's awesome too. Oh, and totally forgot about that Wedding highlight video, so converted that so I can carry it around on my iPhone. Which also reminds me that I need to get in touch with our videographer and see if he's finally up to ours. Meeting with Jason tonight.

Meeting with Jason went fine last night. Got some things to discuss with some other advisors. Other than that, Tracy made roasted chicken quarters, fingerling potatoes, and green beans for dinner. She was watching Blood Diamond when I got home, too. She had one of my days on her day off, curled up on the couch, laptop, watching movies. That's my wife. Got another showing of 907 W. Roscoe tonight with another advisor and our agent, Adam, and then some discussion afterwards. Could be that we're falling out of love with that place. Maybe. Wait and see. But damn if that 1/2 bath on the roof wasn't so cool. Handbrake released a new version, with support for 5.1 surround sound. So, started ripping DVDs to start transcoding, again. Pretty much gonna do 'em all over. Not sure, but reading through some forum posts at the Handbrake site, there's some settings that might allow pretty good quality for both Apple TV and iPhone watching. So maybe I need to do some testing and find that out before starting to transcode.

Yes, we still like 907 W. Roscoe. So we're still moving on that. More news as it comes along. Otherwise, leftovers for dinner last night. Watched The New Adventures of Old Christine and some other real estate shows. So pretty low key there. As for transcoding, supposedly the iPod-HiRez preset in Handbrake should give good Apple TV results as well as ability to play on the iPhone. So gonna try that out to see how it goes. That's pretty much it.

Tracy picked me up from work yesterday, and we drove up and went to a Home Depot. We were looking at Trex, to see what that's all about for the roof deck, and also to look at lighting fixtures, and outdoor furniture, and paint, and other random stuff. Then we went up to Los Nopales, because Tracy had a craving for Mexican, and I wanted to try it out based on Akira's recommendation. It was good, but not the best ever. There was, I think, a hint of seafood flavoring or something in the rice, which of course set off Tracy's allergies, so that wasn't good. Maybe we'll have to try it in the summer instead. After that, just a couple TV shows and bedtime. We're headed out for dinner with my in-laws tonight, to show off the photos we have of 907 W. Roscoe. Headed out to Woodstock at some point this weekend for my parents anniversary. Also want to check some stuff out at Abt Electronics.

Friday night took the Metra out to Orland Park for dinner with the in-laws. Ended up at P.F. Changs, as everything else had like an hour wait. Pretty good stuff, they now have these mini desserts for $2, so it's not too much at the end of the night. Got back to their place and showed off some photos of 907 W. Roscoe. Saturday April dropped by after work, Tracy made her ham, I made eggs with tomatoes and onions, and we watched Yes We Can and Kitchen Confidential. After April left, Tracy and I went out to the 'burbs to check out The Great Indoors looking for light fixtures. Then we went to Abt Electronics to check out appliances, and I'm glad Tracy likes that store as much as I do. We wandered through all the kitchen models, drooling at all the stuff. Best detail? Anti slam drawer hardware. Then we went looking for The Glen, which Tracy had read about in the paper, and we eventually stumbled upon it, and ended up eating at Flight. Another long wait, except the kitchen bar was open. So we got to have dinner looking into the kitchen. Like pretty much in the kitchen. It was awesome. Best part was when the expediter called out a string of medium rare entrees and said it sounded like a real restaurant or kitchen or something. Anyway, ate too much that night as well. Sunday drove out to Woodstock for my parents 35th wedding anniversary, and they ended up renewing their vows at a mass on Sunday afternoon and had a reception at St. Monica. Lots of food there as well. Then, capped off the evening with a family iChat, wishing my brother a happy birthday as well. A pretty full weekend all told.

Waiting for the bus to go home last night saw the rain turn to snow. Always nice when it does that. Also always results in a very pretty snowfall, as snow falls pretty gently, sticks to trees, and piles up on branches. Best snowfall I ever saw was like that, and I spent the afternoon after I got home from high school just watching the snow fall. Anyway, I had my head down watching The Fifth Element so I had no idea how much snow had fallen by the time I got home. And it was pretty substantial. Got our first bill for life insurance, and didn't know what the monthly cost was going to be, so that was interesting. Made me go and create a personal budget in Numbers, which is absolutely awesome. Things I wouldn't have even bothered with doing in Excel, I'm totally willing and able to do easily in Numbers. Did some exercises last night, made some mac & cheese and kielbasa for dinner, watched Cashmere Mafia. Transcoded The Matrix for Apple TV and iPhone, to compare and contrast with the existing 5.1 Apple TV version. I did The Fifth Element wrong, so I had to try it with something else. As for news on 907 W. Roscoe, we're getting ready to put an offer in, and looking for a lender as well.

So getting a mortgage, not even getting a mortgage, just trying to find a lender, has got to be the most annoying part of the home buying process. Ugh. Anyway, finished up watching The Matrix last night, and the transcoding for Apple TV and iPhone looks good, so I'm starting with the entire season of Alias. Also came up with some shell scripts to make it easy to do a bunch of rips with Mac the Ripper and then do a batch transcoding. By my rough calculations, it should complete around this time next week. Awesome. Also bought an upgrade to iBank last night. Love the OFX downloading, and of course only 2 of my accounts support it. Also love the iPhone integration. Means I'll actually be able to keep track of my cash expenditures. Meeting with Adam tonight. Started watching Center Stage last night. Also watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Put in an offer last night on 907 W. Roscoe. And now the waiting begins. Think we've found a lender, too, and going with Wells Fargo. So that's exciting. Kind of unnerving. Went grocery shopping after working with Adam on the offer, picked dinner up, which was ravioli and a vodka cream sauce, to which Tracy added onions and peppers. Watched some Eli Stone. I did my exercises. I did make some chocolate covered strawberries for Tracy again, and I'm having trouble recreating the smoothness from the first couple of times I did it. And, a quick Google search later: it's wet strawberries. So, all I have to do is clean them and pat them completely dry beforehand, or not wash them at all. And dark chocolate covered blueberries aren't all that good. The blueberries are for some sort of breakfast grain. Started reading Neuromancer on the Sony Reader on the bus again. Always good, no matter how many times I've read it. I think the next one will definitely be Ender's Game. That is, unless I start watching Alias, since I'm now on Season 1, Episode 18. It's been transcoding since 10:27am yesterday. Only 91 more episodes to go.

The leap year day. Surprised I hadn't written before on the elusive February 29. Looks like there was a musing from 2000, but that was also during my break from Daily Dose. Anyway, sellers came back with a counter offer last night on 907 W. Roscoe. We've countered back today, and waiting to hear back. We did start looking at other properties, to hedge our bets, and to guard ourselves if we don't end up getting it. Tracy made stir fry for dinner last night, using soba noodles. Watched The Office rerun, and some more real estate shows. Otherwise, pretty low key, just sort of in a holding pattern, waiting to go through all the steps until we know if we got the place or not. Tracy's working this weekend, so watching more movies. Might get out for some exercise on Sunday, got a haircut tomorrow, and that's about it. Planning on making some shrimp dish of the peel and eat variety tonight, something with Old Bay, something to remind me of that place in West Palm Beach just over the bridge from that one year of BOTB.

Plowed through another 7 movies this weekend, 3 from the DVR, 2 from the Apple TV HD rental, 1 just caught on cable, and 1 in the movie theater. Friday night tried making some peel and eat shrimp, but made it too saucy. Maybe I need to just steam the shrimp and cover it in Old Bay. Watched Carpoolers while doing exercises, and then Eli Stone and Bones with dinner. Saturday thought about doing laundry, wanted to make the blueberry loaf again for breakfast, but didn't have eggs, so went grocery shopping, and forgot to get laundry detergent. Had donuts for breakfast and frozen pizza for lunch. Watched Lucky Number Slevin which was pretty good, Gladiator which was pretty boring except for the fight scenes, and Next, clairvoyant Nicholas Cage movie, that sounds like it should have been directed by John Woo. I liked that one too. Made OpenTable reservations at Nacional 27, to help get over the sting of not getting 907 W. Roscoe (seller's lower limit and our upper limit didn't meet). Ended up buying tickets for Jumper via the iPhone while at dinner. Jumper was pretty good, but just seems like a setup to a series or a franchise or at least a sequel. Anyway, small theater at River East was full, so maybe they will get a sequel. Sunday all set to do laundry but no detergent, so went grocery shopping after mass, but by then the laundry room was pretty busy. Watched 300 (still good), Shoot 'Em Up (I really liked this one, fun), and Snakes on a Plane (which I just stumbled upon on cable, and I thought it was entertaining). Went for a walk with Tracy when she got back from work, writing down more addresses of properties, came back and made coconut chicken curry and sesame green beans for dinner. I worked on getting some more books onto the Sony Reader, like Ender's Game, Rainbow Six, Dragonlance Chronicles, and the Harry Potter series. Got a day off tomorrow, going to see the accountant, might try and see some more properties as well.

So, took the day off yesterday to head out and meet our accountant, Steve Piatek, for the first time. So that was good. Monday night Tracy made pork ginataang for dinner, I put together some tax forms and client information for the meeting on Tuesday, and watched Welcome to the Captain, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and No Reservations: Jamaica. Tracy also managed to break our ceramic honing rod. Tuesday drove out to Oakbrook, had our meeting, went to get breakfast at Moondance Diner in Westmont, then did some shopping at Oakbrook Center. Hit the strip of home stores, Z Gallerie, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, and Crate & Barrel. Tracy needed a belt, and picked one up from American Eagle, I got to check out the MacBook Air which is amazing, and got some baking supplies at Williams-Sonoma. Got some hot chocolate from Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe before heading back into the city for a couple some more home showings, 842 W. Aldine and 3504 N. Fremont, which is the new leader of the pack. Did some grocery shopping, Tracy made turkey sloppy joes for dinner, we watched Carpoolers and The New Adventures of Old Christine, and I ordered up a replacement ceramic honing rod. Also had to order up a replacement power supply for my firewire enclosure, which died at some point in the last couple of days. So the Apple TV transcoding is on hold. Days off during the week are great, not a lot of people out shopping during the day, or in restaurants. It's just nice and quiet. Wish I could do it more often.

Seems quiet around the city, at least during my commutes. Not so much traffic, either way. Seems odd. Last night Tracy made turkey paninis for dinner, while I made some pumpkin muffins and a loaf with the leftover batter, with our new muffin and loaf pans from Williams-Sonoma. Watched the season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, or the supposed season finale, since it's the 9th of 9 filmed episodes for a 13 episode season that was completed before the the writers' strike. I like it, it's grown on me, and I want to know what happens. I am interested to see how the new trilogy of movies that are supposedly lined up factor this TV series into the equation. Dinner with the Russells, extended, at Chicago Brauhaus tonight. Headed out on Friday to Toronto with my family, extended, to visit my Auntie Mindy before she goes home to the Philippines next week. Driving, so that should be long. And just me, cause Tracy's working this weekend. So short week, but lots going on.

So left early on Friday morning, like 5am. Took the first shift driving out of Chicago, ended up somewhere in Michigan at a Denny's for breakfast and switching drivers. Finished up Neuromancer and started Ender's Game. Stopped for lunch at a Wendy's somewhere in Canada. Decided I needed to try Tim Horton's at some point before heading back to the States. Took over again just in time for rush hour in Toronto, which was slow going. Lots of snow falling, which really wouldn't let up until a couple hours before we left on Sunday morning. Greeted Auntie Mindy, and started eating. My mom brought a cooler and lots of food. Saturday we only ventured outside to go to FV Foods, a Filipino grocery store, and stocked up some more, and to go to mass. Otherwise, watched HGTV, finished up Ender's Game, and more eating. Then said goodbye, left my dad to hang out with his sister, and headed back home on Sunday morning. My mom took the first shift and drove us through one open lane on snow covered 4 lane expressways. We traded off a couple more times before I took us into Chicago. Tracy and I went out to dinner at Angelina Ristorante after she came home, then a fairly early bedtime. And now I've got a full week of work ahead of me. Not much going on this week.

Traffic seemed light yesterday, at least from my seat on the bus. Started reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight again. Hard to read that without thinking of D&D character creation, class and race modifiers, alignments and all that jazz. Tracy made steak for dinner, which we shared, and some broccoli, and some leftover baked beans in the fridge. I did some exercises, watched Eli Stone. Also started looking into trying out iPhone development, not sure why, but seems to be the hip thing to do. Trying to come up with a good idea. Figured it's a good time, since Tracy needs to be study for her Indiana license, I think, just the law part anyway, so that means less TV and more computer time at the kitchen table with her. Should be getting my replacement power supply for the firewire enclosure, so I should be back to transcoding soon. And I'll be able to sync my iPhone again, which I can't because all my media exists on server shares. Oh, tried to watch Unhitched pilot, but DVR decided to record Family Guy instead. So, I've got to get that in some format.

Met up with Tracy at Caribou Coffee on the way home from work where she was studying. Don't really spend any time in coffee shops, preferring home and a familiar couch or chair instead, but I can understand going to one to remove distractions. We ended up walking around a couple blocks, between Cornelia and Addison on Fremont and Reta, looking at buildings. Doesn't seem to be any more properties coming on the market that meet our criteria, so not sure what our next steps will be. We have a couple we want to check out, and we'll see what happens. Got my replacement power supply for the firewire enclosure, got it put back together and running, and the Mac mini back up and transcoding. Sweet. Didn't really watch anything on TV for once, Tracy made lime chicken over onions and red peppers for dinner, and that's pretty much it. I started uploading more email to my Gmail account. I started slacking on that.

Tracy's old coworkers are in town, so I'm on my own for dinner tonight. Not sure what I'm in the mood for, but we'll see. Something unhealthy, I'm sure. Last night did some exercises as did Tracy, started watching Children of Men, which I'll finish up tonight, and then she made dinner, a chicken and sweet potato gnocchi in a butternut squash sauce. We ended up watching New Amsterdam. And then a pretty early bedtime. I did flip through some show on hot dogs, which of course meant I had to get some for lunch today, which I did. Yum. Also, some movement on the real estate front, as we might start up negotiations for 907 W. Roscoe again. Something Tracy and I need to talk about. What else, weather's taken a turn for the better, and I'm sure that it'll end up snowing once more before spring sprints by and leaves us in summer. It's right around the corner. And that means I should start biking again. And actually the thought crossed my mind to go out for a run. Outside. Oh, and seeing the trailers for Speed Racer? I want to see that movie. Looks like a visual feast.

Finished up Children of Men last night, as expected. Also, transcoding of Alias finished up, and I started on The Unit. I might do some for Tracy next, maybe some Arrested Development, or some Sex and the City. Or I'll just whip through Firefly and Serenity. Either way, lots to do, and definitely might run out of disk space. All 5 seasons of Alias take up roughly 75 GB of space. That's 4 seasons of 22 episodes, and 1 season of 17, for a grand total of 105 episodes, roughly 42 minutes each, roughly 73.5 hours worth of video. Wow. Had some leftovers and some frozen pizza for dinner last night. Headed out to the Argao's tonight on the Metra, Gabe and Sania have their baby shower tomorrow. Oh, and looks like we might be putting in another offer on 907 W. Roscoe, with the seller coming down a bit, and paying some closing costs to help shorten the distance between our max buying price and the sellers min selling price. We'll see what happens there.

Taking the Metra out to Orland Park is much nicer after Daylight Savings Time; I could actually see things out the window. Like a parking lot so forgotten that trees have grown, breaking through the cement. Did some wandering around Orland Square after I got picked up by Tracy, then headed to her parents house to wait for Gabe and Sania and Mike to come with dinner, which finally ended up happening around 10:30ish. Saturday went and got my eyes checked out, they're A-OK, drove there and back via 355, which rocks. Got to take photos of the Gabe and Sania's baby shower with Gabe's digital SLR (a Canon Rebel), which rocked. Of course when I got home later that night I started looking for DSLR, especially the Sony alpha series. So put that on my Wants list. Watched my first movie in 1080p via a Sony Playstation 3 and a Bravia LCD TV, which was impressive. Had some corned beef for dinner, watched The Bourne Ultimatum. Sunday headed down to Phoenix Restaurant for dim sum with the Argaos and the Tongs, checked out a condo building under construction in Chinatown, a little shopping, then headed up and walked around Roscoe Village. Went to 2 open houses of single family homes, both out of our price range. One we couldn't get to the master bedroom because we were defeated by a child-proof gate, and the other was a $2.4 million dollar home, which was awesome. But who has an open house for a home like that? Anyway, we're gonna try and spend a little more time in that neighborhood, maybe hitting up some restaurants, maybe some Finer Things Club action. Leftovers for dinner, and we ended up watching TMNT and Anthony Bourdain: Into the Fire, which was pretty sweet. I still don't know why Kitchen Confidential got canceled. Finished up transcoding The Unit, and will start Firefly probably tonight. Of course, have to redo all the movies as well, but I'll just stick with TV for now.

So, with the WGA strike passing out of memory, there's lots of TV Shows on the DVR now. Although I can't seem to record Unhitched, only 1 of 3 successfully saved, the other 2 didn't, one recorded Family Guy instead and the other had a recording error. Ugh. Looking forward to Miss Guided, as I've read it's similar in humor to Arrested Development. Started transcoding Firefly, and just tacked on Serenity as episode 14. Tracy made corned beef hash for dinner last night, I put eggs on mine, and toast. We watched The New Adventures of Old Christine and Eli Stone. I also did some exercises. I haven't been filing up the humidifier, since it was raining last night, but I did wake up congested, so I'm thinking I should keep using the humidifier until I know the building's turned off their heat. Also, I think it's Spring Break, because it doesn't seem as busy commuting or in the Loop. I've also started using hellotxt to update both my Facebook and twitter statuses at the same time. Just for fun.

Pretty quiet and standard evening last night. Watched Jamie at Home and New Amsterdam. Tracy made a pork stir fry for dinner. She studied some more, I working on more transcoding, now doing season 3 of NewsRadio for Tracy. Finished up Firefly, and started adding them to iTunes. I did end up using more gift certificates at the iTunes Store for Mad Men and It Happened One Night/It Never Happened At All by John Wesley Harding. Did some dishes. That's about it. Might have some movement on the real estate front, just need some more discussion. I do get to make dinner tonight though, since Tracy needs to study more for the Indiana Boards which she's taking tomorrow. I'm going for an old standby, mushroom stuffed chicken breasts, roasted tomatoes, maybe some green beans for a veggie. So that's exciting. Also since Tracy's studying, that means no TV tonight. Also realized that we need more light in our dining room/living room.

Dinner was good last night, and I still can cook. Mushroom stuffed chicken breasts are one of my few, if not only dish, I can cook without a recipe. Only got to watch How I Met Your Mother with dinner. Otherwise, spent some time adding information to the Alias, Firefly, and The Unit episodes I have in iTunes. Doing that made me realize that I'm missing the first episode of Firefly and one episode of Alias Season 3. I think in my script I'm not correctly checking minimum run time of DVD chapters when checking which ones to transcode. Ideally, you only want the episodes to transcode, not any featurettes which are usually much shorter than episodes. But I probably don't handle episodes over an hour well. Hmm, I'll have to look into that. I'm also having issues with NewsRadio, as some episodes are ballooning in size, and Handbrake seems to crash more than usual. So I may end up just doing those manually. I did get to ride in to work this morning with Tracy, and we got to have lunch together at One North Kitchen and Bar.

So we put another offer down on 907 W. Roscoe last night, and while we were signing it at Caribou Coffee, Adam heard from Rick (Seller's Agent) that someone else was putting a bid in. We went ahead and put ours in anyway. And we did not get it. So, moving on. I did get to leave work early yesterday to take care of that, so that was a bonus. Tracy eventually made dinner, after her chiro appointment (with massage). She had a craving for pesto. Watched Kickin It Old Skool while she was away, then Miss/Guided and The Big Bang Theory with and after dinner. Made Jell-O for Tracy. She thinks it's an Easter food, and I disagree. I don't automatically think of Jell-O during any particular holiday season. Also, it's Easter this weekend. Tracy's working, so I don't have a car to drive out to Woodstock, and the weather's not so good, even though it's Spring, so my parents aren't coming in to the city, so that means a nice quiet Easter sunday. And, since Tracy's working, I'll be able to watch a bunch of movies this weekend. Although I don't really have a whole lot on the DVR, just Hot Fuzz.

Friday night, last Lenten Friday, ordered some sushi and stuff from Chen's, watched Eli Stone. Pretty low key. Saturday started 5 loads of laundry when Tracy went off to work. Watched Hot Fuzz], which I liked, and Shooter, which was OK. Made myself SPAMsilog for lunch, and Tracy made turkey chili for lunch. Watched New Amsterdam with dinner. Sunday cleaned up a bit before taking the bus to the train out to Woodstock for my mom's Easter Lunch, and then got a ride from my Ate Joy back to the train station, then the bus until I got home. Ended up spent more time traveling than actually at home in Woodstock. But good nonetheless. Made it home about 5 minutes before Tracy walked in the door. Had some leftovers for dinner, watched Keeping the Faith, Unhitched, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and Miss/Guided. Also have been keeping track of Scandal at Paganello this year, and congrats to them, as long as the results reporting on the website is official, but Akira finally managed to bring home the umbrella, on his 9th try. That's awesome. Not completely sure of the roster, but Akira's the only original member at 9 times, Bjorn I think comes in 2nd at 8 times going. I was there when it started, and it's awesome to see something I was a part of in the beginning, finally reach the top, even if I'm 5 years removed. Congrats to them.

Nothing exciting going on. Did my exercises last night. Leftovers for dinner. Watched New Amsterdam and How I Met Your Mother. Working on ripping Las Vegas (tv show) for transcoding to Apple TV. Trying to figure out which episode I'm missing for Alias Season 3 and which episodes are dupes in Season 2. Also, the issue I had with transcoding NewsRadio was because the first title plays all episodes on the disc, so I was transcoding a 3 hours of all episodes plus each individual episode. Oh, I have decided to start using Flickr again, instead of Gallery. Upgraded to a pro account, got FlickrExport, uploaded some older Paganello photos. Still have to figure out how to integrate it well with Daily Dose. Being back on flickr means I can email photos directly to my gallery, which means I am more likely to post photos again. Even better would be when an iPhone Flickr client comes out, whenever that happens. Also think I've finally figured out my problems uploading local archived email to my Google Apps IMAP account: take the account offline in Mail.app, copy the messages over, then bring the account back online. Seems to work, but I started it when I left this morning, so I'll know more when I get back. But my %used keeps going up on Gmail, now at 2630 MB (40%) of my 6551 MB. When it's all said and done, I'll have online email archives available back to June 1997. Awesome.

Still waiting on some sort of news/writeup on the Scandal Paganello win. I will have to try out Blockstack.tv coverage tonight though, as they actually cover it. However, people are probably just getting back into town today, so maybe they'll be some writeups in the next couple of days. Finished up Dragons of Winter Night on the bus home last night, started up Dragons of Spring Dawning. No idea if I'll keep up with the Dragonlance reading with Legends, or just give up and start riding my bike to work again. That'll happen eventually. Leftovers for dinner last night. Watched New Amsterdam, The Big Bang Theory (which doesn't seem quite as funny anymore, but nice to have Rent play a part), and some Real Estate shows. Almost done ripping Las Vegas (tv show), which means I can start transcoding them soon, all 4 seasons. The trick to upload large quantities of email to Google Apps seems to work OK, but it chokes on some random emails. Probably did 16K yesterday, another 12K today. And I still have lots more to do. Also got a snail mail flyer for Toast of the Town, a wine tasting at the Field Museum on May 1, 7-10pm. Already bought our tickets, should be fun. A little expensive, but always cool to drink wine while walking around a museum. Oh, and we'll be participating in Earth Hour on Saturday, March 29, at 8pm. See Earth Hour Chicago for more details.

Did a quick grocery shopping on the way home from work yesterday and only picked up one impulse buy: popsicles. Just had a craving. Gotta satisfy it. Otherwise, did some exercises, watched Top Chef, I think for the first time, mainly because it was set in Chicago this season. I like it better than Hell's Kitchen, at least after 1 episode. Tracy made chicken adobo for dinner, which I had leftovers for lunch. Otherwise, watched some more real estate shows. Speaking of which, we're checking out a couple other places tonight with Adam, one around the corner from Sai Cafe at 2041 N. Bissel and another way up there in Ravenswood/Lincoln Square at 4842 N. Damen. Gonna keep looking. Read a pretty good article on real estate in the neighborhoods we're looking in. Oh, and it snowed, is snowing, will continue to snow. Awesome. Watched the blockstack.tv coverage of Paganello, and there wasn't enough Scandal to satisfy me. Weather did look pretty bad though.

Ok, so passing on the places we looked at yesterday. Eh. We do have an open house at 3519 N. Fremont to go to on Sunday, from 11am-1pm. So hopefully that one we'll like. The only issue with the Fremont ones is the proximity to Wrigley Field, or whatever they're gonna call it. Ended up having dinner in Roscoe Village, at Restaurant El Tinajon, a cute little Guatemalan place. Not bad. Gotta play the lottery tonight, Mega Millions is up to 113 million. That would broaden the real estate search a bit. Lisa and Ryan are in town this weekend, and Tracy and I get to play chauffeur and pick up Lisa from O'Hare tonight. Tracy had to find someplace for a bunch of us to go tomorrow night, and eventually came down to Mystic Celt, over on Southport. Should be good. Hopefully not too busy. Other than that, got a haircut tomorrow morning. Might go out and get preapproval for a loan, someplace local this time.

Out and about for a good part of the weekend. Friday night did some exercises, Tracy made some roast chicken for dinner, we watched Eli Stone before picking up Lisa from the airport and bringing her down to the Hilton Chicago to meet up with Ryan and have a couple drinks at the Lakeside Green Lounge. Saturday got a haircut, then we wandered down to Macy's to spend the giftcard that was expiring. It was actually a little hard being forced to spend money like that, looking for things to buy. After a short nap at home, we met up with Jespy, Lisa, and Missy at Coobah for dinner, before heading over to Smart Bar where Ryan and eventually Tony and Carlo joined us as well for drinks and dancing. Ended up at Pick Me Up Cafe for a late night snack, before walking home. I tried to keep up with hellotxt and Flickr. Sunday, wandered about checking out open houses: 3519 N. Fremont (same old same old, but bad kitchen peninsula), 3518 N. Reta (older duplex up, out of price range), 550 W. Wellington 7W (super fancy well decorated out of price range), and 717 W. Briar Pl. (loftish needs some work). Had lunch at The Bagel, Tracy got some cheese from Pastoral, and I got another nap in. Worked some more with Mint.com. Tracy made a roasted lamb shank for dinner with some beans. Oh, and like Saturday night, completely spaced on Earth Hour. We didn't have our lights on, but at the same time, had no idea that the lights went off. Oh well.

I can't believe it but it's been 4 months since I've ridden my bike to work. Long time. As soon as I finish Dragons of Spring Dawning, I'll do the work to get my bike back up and running and I'll start riding again. That'll also make it easier to check out real estate by riding by. I should actually finish up with the book by tonight, so hopefully that means riding tomorrow. Last night did some exercises, which lately I've been doing while watching I, Robot piecemeal. Tracy made pork chops and a portobello caprese. We watched The New Adventures of Old Christine, How I Met Your Mother, and The Big Bang Theory. I looked for new wallpapers to use with my iPhone, and want to try and use the Arashikage Clan logo, which is actually the 63rd Hexagram of the I Ching. But I need to find some image editing program, which might end up being Keynote. Also thought about using the Chicago 2016 logo, but I couldn't get it to work properly under Mac OS X. Worked fine on Windows XP though. Just realized I could have done it via Parallels. Whoops. Got a meeting with Jason tonight. Also, Tracy and I are thinking of putting an offer in on another property versus waiting for something else we might like better.

Should have worked on the bike yesterday, which actually just entails handlebar tape and putting fenders on, making sure the tires are inflated, and instead had dinner (Tracy made some ground turkey tomato sauce noodle dish with cilantro) and watched New Amsterdam and The New Adventures of Old Christine and used Keynote to create some iPhone wallpapers for myself. Anyway, I did have another 30 pages to go in Dragons of Spring Dawning that I finished up this morning, so I should be riding tomorrow. My newest want is a Ricoh GR Digital II: a compact camera that's capable of full manual control, fixed 28mm lens, and shooting RAW. I'd want that instead of a full fledged DSLR. And my whole Flickr reinfatuation isn't doing so well. It's just a problem not having a true desktop. Maybe if I use Image Capture instead of iPhoto on the Mac mini, and always have a card reader on the mini, I'll be better about moving photos off the cameras. And then I can just do an import to iPhoto when I get around to it on the MacBook. Hmmm, maybe I'll set that up tonight, after I do the bike work, after I do my exercises.

So, wanted to ride the bike today, even got so far as Pine Grove, but I turned around and took the bus instead. Why? My front tire rubs against my new fender. Not good. Didn't notice it until I pumped up the tires. And then the rubbing started. Not sure how to fix it either. I did wrap the handlebars in tape. That was a lot easier than I thought. Of course, it could all unravel the first time I ride it, so I'll just wait and see. Also need to trim the fender struts a little, so they don't poke my legs when turning. Otherwise, bike looks in good shape. Can't wait to get out there again. Of course, I started working on the bike pretty late last night, so I'm kind of tired now. I did take the el home last night, watched Mad Men on the way, walked by 863 W. Fletcher to check it out, picked up some stuff at Jewel (managed to pick out a ripe avocado, more luck than anything). Did some exercises, used Image Capture to upload photos to the Mac mini, imported to iPhoto on the MacBook to show Tracy. Watched Top Chef, Tracy made guacamole and flank steak. And then I worked on my bike.

Lazy last night. Or just dealing with a headache. Either way, came home and just plopped down on the couch. Watched Foods of Chicago: A Delicious History, which made me hungry. Tracy was exercising, and didn't know what to make for dinner, so I just started eating stuff out of the fridge, some cold fried chicken and chips and dip. Healthy, I know. Tracy made herself a reuben. We watched some reruns of The Office, and still so funny. Early bedtime, too. Oh, but one of the disks went south in my firewire enclosure. Go figure, it's the iTunes Store backup disk. Invalid B-Tree nodes or some such nonsense. Disk Utility couldn't fix it, so I bought an upgrade to DiskWarrior, and hopefully that'll take care of it. Good thing the other disks didn't go bad, and it was only the backup, and the main source of all the files is still around. If I can get it back up, I'll have to move stuff off of it and reformat it to be safe. And yeah, I really don't have a true backup backup system for purchased iTunes stuff. Maybe I should. Nothing planned for the weekend. Except laundry.

Friday night didn't do my exercises. Whoops. Said we'd do 'em this weekend. But that never happened. Instead I made crepes for dinner, and Tracy made the chicken in cream sauce for them. That was good. Also had plenty leftover for breakfast. I think we ended up watching Miss/Guided. Saturday we went shopping at Old Orchard to enjoy the weather. Got the pants I'm wearing now, on sale, at the Gap, along with a couple shirts and a hoodie sweater I've been eyeing for the last 6 months or so. It was on sale and in my size and color. Finally. Otherwise, ate some mall food, saw some really expensive furniture, and then wandered over to Muvico Rosemont 18 to see Leatherheads. We got there a little early for our reservations, so we napped in the car in the parking garage before heading in for drinks before the movie, and some movie food during the movie. The movie itself was just ok. And I still love that theater. Afterwards, we went to dinner at Gibsons in Rosemont, which was right around the corner. Good piece of steak that I couldn't finish. Sunday, got the bikes ready to check out a bunch of open houses: 639 W. Briar (eh, no fireplace), 2658 N. Mildred ($2.9 million SFH), 2645 N. Mildred (eh, odd layout), 2635 N. Mildred (new favorite), and 863 W. Fletcher (eh, semi useless dog house). Our new favorite we weren't even planning on checking out, since I thought it was just like 2645. I was totally wrong. I think it's very similar to 907 W. Roscoe, and priced similarly. Hoping for a second showing sometime this week. Oh, and it's in Lincoln Park. After a little snack at home, went grocery shopping at Whole Foods, reheated leftovers for dinner, and watched Ratatouille off the Apple TV. Also tried to watch 2 Weeks Notice, but that never ended up downloading last night. So, still not riding to work, still need to do some front fender work. Otherwise, it was nice getting out on the bike again.

Took the el home last night for a change. No real reason for it either. First time in a while I've been on a train that was packed. Usually I'm able to catch an emptier one. Odd. I think it was busy because of Sox fans, but I'm not sure. That's just a guess. But getting some fresh air on the walk home was good. Watched Family Guy's Blue Harvest, which was kind of funny. Did some exercises, Tracy made lamb chops and asparagus for dinner, which I ate while watching Bones and Samantha Who?. For some reason I've started just using Tracy's plate, after she's done eating, so I don't have to do one more plate when doing dishes. We don't really eat too often at the dinner table. In the new place, hopefully. Started up FTP'ing eric.abando.com source code and files, since I'm starting up a development environment again. Took all night. That's a lot of files. I think I'll be shutting down the gallery soon though.

I know, a late posting. It probably means the post tomorrow will be equally late or incredibly short. So watched a bit of Lucky You while Tracy made shepherd's pie. I do like how the movie shows off Las Vegas. Always good to see. Also watched Eli Stone while eating the pie, which was good, even if it was made with ground turkey instead of beef or lamb. Also spent some time trying to figure out to get Movable Type and WordPress MU installed locally. Getting all the requirements installed and working properly is the annoying part. Mysql, DBD::mysql, and php all talking together. Ugh. But finally got it all up and running, and just need to pick one to go with for Tun's Website. Otherwise, not much. I guess I'll just save tonight for tomorrow, so at least I'll have something to write about it.

So second viewing of 2635 N. Mildred last night. Went OK. But we're passing. Things we like and need now include attached garage, and Lakeview location. Still. Might have some more possibilities as Adam does his agent networking, so we'll see. Had dinner at Smoke Shack, a BBQ place down the street. Tasted very smokey, and we tasted citrus in the sauce. So it wasn't quite for us. Took the bus back home, did some grocery shopping. Figured out How to Record from DVR to Mac OS X, in order to get a recording of Spice Up My Kitchen for Lisa and Ryan. We'll record it tonight, I'll edit it and transcode it to a smaller format and put it online somewhere for them to watch or download. But it's pretty cool. I could actually get much more HD content to play back via the DVR and stored on computers, if I really wanted to, but it's not really super easy, at least not Apple easy. Weather, of course, has taken a turn for the worse. Would have been fun to bike in though.

Last night just folded some laundry. Tracy made some ratatouille, which she wasn't happy with, probably because it was ratatouille. I finished up Lucky You, which I thought was ok. Ended up watching New Amsterdam with dinner. Tried transferring over Spice Up My Kitchen from the DVR to the MacBook last night, but failed because I tried fast forwarding through commercials. So I retransferred it this morning, no fast forwarding, and just edited out the commercials in Quicktime Pro after transcoding it with ffmpegx. Super super easy. Tracy's working this weekend, as has put in a request for souffle, so I'll make the standard chocolate one tomorrow night with lemon chicken, and then try a cheese one on Sunday. Probably be helping Russell with his new MacBook tomorrow, and watching a few movies. Maybe I'll archive off the Smallville episodes off the DVR, now that I know how. Just annoying that the process is realtime. Oh, went out to lunch with some coworkers to Sushi Sai, a new place that opened just around the corner. It was pretty good, and probably where I'll be getting lunch once a week from here on out.

So, I didn't really update the Memex over the weekend, and I've completely forgotten what we had for dinner Friday night. Like a complete blank. Oh, wait, we had leftovers. Anyway, I just slipped this weekend, and didn't update at all. And I didn't take any notes. Anyway, just quiet couch time on Friday night. Probably watched 30 Rock and The Office. Tracy worked, so I didn't do anything exciting this weekend. Saturday took a nap in the morning while Next played on the DVR. Cleaned up a little, hung out with my parents for a bit, went grocery shopping, made dinner for the four of us (Lemon Chicken, Special Rice, and Sesame green beans). Even used a tablecloth. Didn't make chocolate souffles, since I didn't know we ran out of cocoa. Probably watched something on TV after dinner, but don't remember. Probably Eli Stone and Scrubs. Sunday, went to mass, got some coffee from Coffee & Tea Exchange to drink and for the espresso machine, and grocery shopped at Treasure Island. Twice. Had to go back for the cocoa which I forget. That should teach me not to go shopping without a list. Took another nap. Worked on my bike, took it out for a spin. Needed to tweak the shifter a bit. But otherwise, good to go. Made cheese souffles for an appetizer, chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and broccoli (ok, Tracy made the broccoli), and chocolate souffles for dessert. That took a while. Also not entirely happy with the souffles, but I bet that's because I tried to halve both recipes, and then put them together, because that's the only way I could think of halving a 3 egg recipe. Anyway, finally watched Two Weeks Notice rented from the Apple TV.

Back to commuting to work by bike. Good times. Except for the creaking. Lots of it yesterday, so I greased some screws last night. The ride in this morning was relatively quiet, until it started creaking again, not nearly as bad though. I'm thinking I need to check the cranks, and grease them up. Annoying. But otherwise, riding smooth and easy. And slowly. Pretty much everyone passes me by. Rode up to the Russells after work last night to help them out with the new computer. Also means I got one of my small enclosures back. Not sure what I'll use it for, but it's nice to have. Made it home to Tracy no problems. I'd have to say this might be my favorite time of the year to ride, since it's cold enough that I don't get that sweaty, but warm enough to still ride relatively comfortably. It's nice. Also, I'm tired. First time back doing some real physical activity in a while. So that's good. Tracy cooked up some longanisa for dinner. Watched Samantha Who?, then bedtime. Headed to a Cubs game tonight with Jespy via free tickets from my parents from a patient. Hopefully it won't be too chilly out.

Cubs game last night was good. Not too chilly, Cubs won, only missed the first 2 innings, got some beers and hot dogs and nachos with some friends. Good times. Always nice to be able to walk there and not have to worry about getting there. Also walked down Fremont afterwards, and it was surprisingly quiet. So that satisfies one of my worries about possibly living on that street. Had some ice cream when I got home, watched How I Met Your Mother before bedtime. Riding in today was hard, partly because of the wind and partly because it's my 3rd time after a long hiatus (about 4 months, 18 days). Also interested in the Urbanathlon, since I'm already doing Muddy Buddy, figure why not something else? Maybe give me something to actually get in shape for. Still need to fix the bike creaking. And since everyone passes me, makes me wonder if something's not right on the bike, and I'm not as efficient as I could me. Also makes me wonder what it might be like on a normal chain drive bike, and if I'd be any faster. Oh well. I'll keep cruising along and watch people pass me by. I'm in no hurry.

I was hoping for some rain this afternoon, maybe a thunderstorm. I was looking forward to riding home in it. But doesn't look like there'll be any such thing. Looks pretty nice out. Ride in was OK. Took me about 32 minutes from home to work. I actually paid attention this morning. Last night started making dinner before Tracy got home, lots of traffic. I just had to fry the garlic lemon marinated chicken breasts and finish them in the oven. I also decided to make cookies because of a craving. Yum. Watched Bones and The Big Bang Theory. BBT seems to get worse and worse. Also did some work on Tun's Websites, specifically, the travel ones. I took the easy way out and just had multiple independent WordPress installations. Easier than trying to get WordPress MU or Movable Type working. Less integration, but easier to set up and go. Figured maybe I can finally try and update his math website as well. Been a while since I said I'd work on it. But WP is pretty sweet. Tried to get Ravinia tickets to Sheryl Crow, but the website was unresponsive, and then threw an error when I was trying, and when I tried again? All sold out. Ugh. But definitely gonna try and get up there sometime this summer. That and a drive-in. I don't care if it's just Tracy and I, but I'm going.

Decided to take it easy this morning on the ride in. Slower pace, no rush, nice and easy. Didn't get to ride home in the rain last night because there wasn't any rain. Definitely a bit colder than I thought. Just felt like a mass of cold air. Likewise on the ride in this morning, but that seemed to change right around Chicago Ave. I think, the air wasn't as cold. Anyway, Tracy made a paprika based spice rub for some pork chops last night for dinner. We watched Eli Stone and 30 Rock. Eli is one of my new favorites. A show about a lawyer who's also a prophet? Yup, it's good. The writers/creators also do Brothers & Sisters, so maybe I should give that a whirl, and they had done Jack & Bobby, so maybe it's not so much of a surprise. Also upgraded Tun's Website to the newest version of WordPress, and now finally tweaking my dev environment to fully simulate the production environment. Which should make it easier to develop for. Dinner with Bryan and his brother at Pequod tonight. Never been, but should be good. Oh, and this whole earthquake thing? No idea. Never felt a thing. Probably headed out to some open houses this weekend, just more free looks.

Boy, when I do this biking thing, I do this biking thing. Friday night biked back home, met up with Tracy, then we biked down to Pequod. Then we biked a bit more, side streets and stuff on the way back. Ended up watching The Office and Scrubs. Saturday Tracy made breakfast of grits and bacon. Then off on the bikes again, checking out open houses. Went and saw 827 W. Roscoe, which was really cute and quaint and would be high on my list if it had a garage and a 2nd bathroom, and 2224 W. Roscoe over in Roscoe Village, which was out of our price range. Again, more side streets on the way home, I think heading down Wellington. Tracy made crab cakes for dinner, and I started to watched Flyboys and we watched New Amsterdam after dinner at the table. Oh, and on the bike ride home I thought something funny was going on with my left pedal, and when I worked on it that night, low and behold, the pedal was stripping out the left crank. Awesome. So I have a request in to possibly get that covered by the warranty. We'll see. In the meantime, I'm on the mtb. Took that out Sunday for more open houses, one in Old Townish at 1442 N. Mohawk, eh, then back up in Lincoln Park at 923 W. Wrightwood. I had screwed up with the time, and we showed up after the open house, but the guy was nice enough to let us walk through anyway. That one was nice, bathroom and stuff in the dog house, but surprisingly small rooms. Then across the border onto a busier street, probably the busiest one we've seen, at 2854 N. Halsted. That one had an elevator, but seemed pretty simple. Then we had a little snack at Dunkin Donuts before trekking down to River North hoping to see 375 W. Erie, but I screwed up there again, as the open house is for next Sunday. Whoops. Anyway, we ended up over in Millennium Park and walked around for a bit before biking up the lake and stopping in Old Town for a small dinner at Trattoria Roma. They had pretty good carpaccio, so it's on the list. Then we biked home, more side streets, then headed through the park before ending up at Treasure Island for supplies for crepes. We had a craving after seeing La Creperie on Check, Please! the night before. So that was dessert, and well needed after all that biking. So I'm on the mountain bike, and whenever I am, I think about converting it to a single speed. I'm pretty much using it as a single speed now, but I could still remove the useless cogs just to clean it up. And the bike itself could use a cleaning. And a rack. And a front fender.

Was looking forward to the ride home through thunderstorms tonight. But doesn't look like that's gonna happen. Last night Tracy made her Asian glazed chicken and fried rice. She put on Flyboys when she started cooking, and I finally finished that movie off. It's ok, but I expected a little more out of the zeppelin fight. We watched Top Chef and Bones with dinner. That's pretty much it. Did a little real estate related searches, coming across a site that lists demo and building permits in our ward, and found a couple locations, 821 W. Roscoe and 721 W. Buckingham that are supposed to have 4 unit masonry buildings going up. Both of those are right in our prime locations. Hopefully they'll put something nice up. I looked up the one on Roscoe because we saw it starting construction while looking at open houses on Saturday. I'll have to take a peek at Buckingham on the way home.

Whoops, missed yesterday. Like Wednesday never happened. But nothing really interesting did. Rode to work. Worked. Rode home. Tried working in Sketchup, but failing miserably. I might have to watch some video tutorials to find out how to use it. Had leftovers for dinner. Tracy watched Smallville and Samantha Who?. She pretty much went to bed on the couch, and I watched an episode of Mad Men. Oh, Tuesday night rode home, took some photos and checked out 721 W. Buckingham and 821 W. Roscoe. Of the two, Roscoe is actually under construction, and is located right next to a park. It probably has a pretty good view as well. I wonder how long it takes for something like that to go to market? Also Tuesday night helped make chicken parmigiana (pounded and breaded), watched Eli Stone, The Big Bang Theory, and How I Met Your Mother. So that was the last 2 days.

On the way home last night there was a lot of traffic around Merchandise Mart. Seemed like a conference of some sort, but that might be odd given that I was riding by at 6pm or so. Lots of cabs, some limos, people looking for parking. Always nice to be able to ride past stuck traffic like that. Still didn't get to ride home in the rain, just a little sprinkling here and there, but no rain. Maybe today. Watched Mad Men while Tracy made dinner, lamb shoulder steaks and a 2 bean salad. Watched Top Chef, Scrubs and The Office after dinner. Was able to readjust the DVR schedule when the Sox/Yankees game had a rain delay, and thus pushed back Smallville. So that's good. Good news about my bike, I'm getting replacement cranks shipped out. So I should be back on my road bike next week hopefully. I should do some maintenance on the mountain bike this weekend though. And do laundry. Headed out with the boys to Chicago Brauhaus Saturday night. Might check out some open houses by myself on Sunday, depending on how long the piano tuning will take. Getting a little warm and muggy, and waiting for the cold spell or at least the A/C to kick in. Also, my legs are sore. Too much biking? Too much commuting on the mtb? Got plenty of movies to watch on the weekend as well. Rented Hitman and The Kingdom on the Apple TV.

Friday night watched A Good Year. That and The Holiday are I think two movies that I'll just sit and watch whenever I notice them on one of the HD movie channels. Tracy made lambchops for dinner, and she's figured out perfectly how to cook them. Impressive. Watched Grey's Anatomy after dinner. On Saturday while Tracy was working, I got a haircut, watched Gone in Sixty Seconds, Fracture which was pretty good, and Hitman which was pretty much as expected. I also finally did some work on Tun's Website, the travel blog, and put together a quick little China summary page. Took me a while to figure out the UTF8 stuff, but now it actually looks OK. Oh, and did a little cleaning and organizing. Headed out by bike to Chicago Brauhaus for dinner with the boys, since Whitney was in town. Giant liters of beer around the table, plates of meat and sausage, and good times. Ended up at The Grafton down the street afterwards, and I got put in the doghouse for not telling my wife I was still out. My bad. But I think that'd be the first time I've been out with the boys for a pretty late night. Won't happen again, the forgetting to notify. Made it home in one piece, and Lincoln Square isn't far at all by bike. Very easy to get to as well. Sunday did laundry, fell asleep on the couch for a good long while, watched Broken Arrow, had the piano tuned. Went out to dinner when Tracy got back at Harry Caray's Tavern. It's ok. They ran out of BBQ sauce. Walked around a bit, got some ice cream from Windy City Sweets, watched 30 Rock and Desperate Housewives. Finally lubed up the chain this morning before the commute in, was thinking of getting some degreaser on the way home, but now that it's raining, I'll probably just head straight home. Finally, some rain while biking.

Rode home in the rain last night. As much as I was looking forward to it, I was disappointed. Too cold. No front fender, and no panniers or rack trunk made it annoying. Oh, and my chain kept jumping, but I somehow managed to get it back on repeatedly without having to stop. That's pretty cool, if annoying. So I get home, and my new cranks are in the mailbox. Package looks small, but they look great. Tracy made her turkey chili for dinner. Did my exercises. Watched Smallville, The Big Bang Theory, and How I Met Your Mother. Put the new cranks on the road bike. Rewrapped my handlebars while I was at it. Remembered to bring along crank and pedal wrenches, just in case, on the ride in this morning. Good thing, cause I needed to tighten the left pedal. I think that's how I stripped out the left crank before, the pedal got loose, kept pedaling, and it jumps a thread, and then grinds away. But I caught it this time. Otherwise, the ride in was nice and easy. It's nice having gears again. However after a week or two on the mtb, I realize how slow I was going before. And maybe that the shaft drive is inefficient. And that I really need clips of some sort on the pedals. But the gear thing is awfully nice. As is not needing to tie up the right pants leg. But it's good to have a backup bike, just in case. Went to lunch to celebrate a coworker's birthday at Poag Mahone's. Had a burger, swiss, grilled onions, bacon, and BBQ sauce. Yum. Tracy's headed out to visit her parents tonight, which conveniently makes her miss Cubs traffic. So I'm on my own for dinner, and not sure what to go with.

I went with macaroni and cheese for dinner last night. Worked a little on trying to rip a News segment from a web video for Nicole. Watched The Kingdom, which was good, but could have been better if not for the shaky cam. Woe to the inventor or the pioneer user of the shaky cam. I don't think I've seen a use of it that I liked, except maybe in The Blair Witch Project. I feel a big budget movie should never be cheapened by hand held camera use. Ok, moving on. I realized I might have to completely remove the shaft drive to get at the creaking problem on the road bike. I didn't grease up any of that at all, so that's probably a giant creak monster right there. Not sure when I'll get around to that, since it's a pretty big production. But then I'll be able to tweak my internal hub shifter, which needs to get adjusted. The shifter itself came loose this morning, and it wasn't easily tightened. Also annoying. Oh, and it's May tomorrow. Crazy. Probably be looking at some more real estate this weekend. Prices for the places still on the market seem to be trending down, which might be good for us. Wait and see.

Riding home last night stumbled across the sign for 821 W. Roscoe. Finally has an agent. Adam got in touch, and gathering info for us. Still early enough in the building process that some things haven't been determined, like shared vs. private roof deck. Which is a big deal. But we'll see. Good to actually have some information on it, finally. Otherwise, did some exercises while Tracy made coconut chicken curry for dinner last night. Watched Smallville and House. That's about it. Still trying to get that web video ripped for Nicole. Tonight headed to the Field Museum for the Wine Enthusiast Toast of the Town 2008. Should be fun.

Ok, it's official, the first one got away. 907 W. Roscoe closed the other day. I admit, I was half hoping for the contract to fall through, but no such luck. Good thing though, we're looking at some places this weekend, 920 W. Barry, 3535 N. Reta, and 853 W. Buckingham. One of those might be like 3504 N. Fremont, which is good. But we'll see. Moving on. Last night I came home to a drunk Tracy, who spent the day with birthday girl April, first at the Cubs game, then at Harry Caray's Tavern. So, I let her sleep a little bit, and we didn't leave for Toast of the Town until 7:40ish. At about Grant Park, we have the cab turn around because Tracy forgot her ID, so we don't end up at the Field Museum until 8:30ish. The actual tasting is OK, like a fancy pants Wine Crush. Tasted some wines, got some food. Lots of dressed up people. Not a whole lot of traffic flow, lots of standing around and squeezing through groups. And the exhibits weren't open. So that was slightly disappointing. On the way out, the self organizing taxi line was an interesting phenomenon. Completely spontaneous. No lines, nothing written down, but people formed a line. Odd. Made it home ok, watched some TV, tried out the Haagen-Dazs Grean Tea, which was OK, not as good as Sai. Rode in this morning, used one of the panniers, knowing full well I'd be riding home in the rain. Depending on the weather, might go to Looptopia tonight. Gonna see Baby Mama with the Russells tomorrow. Sunday is real estate viewings. Other than that, gotta fit in some bike maintenance this weekend, and hopefully get rid of the creaking.

Friday night nothing special, did my exercises, Tracy made kabobs for dinner, watched Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy. Guess it was a medical night. Saturday Tracy made hashbrowns, which she was looking forward to. I did some work on my bike, and think I got rid of the creaking, but now the first gear doesn't work. Also managed to put Power Grips on, which are pretty sweet. Then we went shopping, window shopping anyway, down Michigan Ave, always looking at furniture, things to go in our new place, whenever we actually get around to getting a new place. Did end up getting a pair of those convertible travel pants. Figure they might come in handy. Met up with the Russells for a couples date, dinner at Emilio's Tapas and watched Baby Mama. Good food, company, and movie. The bus on the way home was surprisingly packed. Sunday was gonna go to Nookies Tree for brunch, but ended up across the street at Mini Bar. That was pretty good, and we'll end up there again I'm sure. Then we checked out the open house at 1141 W. Patterson, then headed home to change because it was really really nice out, then down to 920 W. Barry to meet with Adam then up to 3535 N. Reta and 853 W. Buckingham. We like the one on Reta. It's very similar to the other ones we've been looking at, but among them all, it's our favorite of the bunch. So we'll see. After that, we got a snack down at Bobtail Soda Fountain, and then home, before meeting up with Dave Morse at Coco Pazzo Cafe for dinner. I liked it. This morning I had to make some phone calls, because I was slightly worried about going to Costa Rica on Friday and my passport expires in 3 months. But the consulate says I'm ok, so I'm good. Definitely have to get that renewed when we get back.

So the wheels are in motion. We have an offer in for 3535 N. Reta. We've got an attorney, Joanne Gleason, and an inspector tentatively scheduled for Thursday morning. All hoping to get most of it squared away by Thursday night. A whirlwind, I know. It's surprisingly easy, so far anyway. Right now waiting to hear back from the seller. Besides that, not much. Tracy made nilaga for dinner last night, and threw some asparagus into the pot. A little tweak on the normal Filipino beef soup. I did my exercises. Oh, and on the ride home my right pedal started coming loose, so had to tighten that up. Also, got a lot of ticking while pedaling, so something else to try and troubleshoot, but the creaking is gone. Watched The Office, 30 Rock and Samantha Who?. Had a brief internet outage at home towards the end of the night, I think DNS settings were screwed up, so just left the cable modem unplugged overnight, and like magic, the internet was working again in the morning.

Done. Well, hopefully done. The great housing search of '08 is over. We have a contract for 3535 N. Reta. Home inspection is for tomorrow. Once that's done, we've got a while before closing, but it's nice that it's over and done with. Yay! Seemed like a pretty simple process. So far at least. Had leftovers for dinner last night, watched Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Desperate Housewives, and The Big Bang Theory. Tracy had gone shopping for some last minute stuff for our trip to Costa Rica. Put some grease in the gears before the ride in the rain to work this morning. Not sure, but things seemed smoother, but I couldn't tell if things were any quieter. The Power Grips are nice, and I'm still getting used to them. Not yet easy peasy to get into. Worked well for the rain commute. Otherwise? We're homeowners, sort of. That'll happen officially later.

Well, 3535 N. Reta passed the home inspection. Nothing serious to worry about. Inspector was impressed, which I take as a good sign. Got a mortgage with Wells Fargo Home Financial. Yup. With those two things out of the way, I don't see anything that would prevent us from becoming homeowners in a couple months. We don't actually close until the end of June. Wow. The process that started with checking out Motor Row Lofts back on January 14 is finally coming to a close. Exciting. And besides that, headed to Costa Rica on a Caravan Tours package with Lisa and Ryan for our anniversaries. We leave tomorrow and won't be back until the 18th. Should be a lot of fun. Did laundry last night cause we're packing tonight. Tracy made mechado, we watched Top Chef and How I Met Your Mother. So probably won't be posting, maybe just a couple times, while I'm gone. We'll see.

Back from vacation. I'll work on providing a more detailed writeup on the Memex page for Caravan Costa Rica Natural Paradise Tour. Overall, it was great. Great country, food, friends old and new, activities, accommodations, sights and sounds. All good. I'll also work on getting photos up at Flickr. Only have I think 700 or so to go through. Some highlights? Getting absolutely great weather for all the sightseeing, and only really getting rain during the resorty parts of the trip. Seeing lava/eruptions. Going ziplining. Seeing lots of animals. Stepping in both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Renaissance Faire production of A Coffee Plantation. The coffee. Rice and beans. A surprise stay at an all inclusive resort. But it's good to be back. It's good to not have to be on a bus anymore. Got back around 10:30ish last night. Walked down and picked up Tracy's keys from April, who was supposed to be plant watering for us, which is just basil. Then had a late dinner at Melrose Diner. Then back on internet after a long time off. I think I'm back up to speed again. Then rode in to work today. And back to work.

Kind of back into the swing of things. Not really. Got more sleep last night though. Tracy made chicken soup, she might be coming down with a cold. I worked a bit on photos from vacation. All those photos of the rain forest tend to be a bit repetitive. And then labeling them all? How many times can I write trees? Got lots of stuff on the DVR, watched Bones and Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs, even though that one was shown out of order. Got lots of laundry to do, maybe we should try and sneak that in tonight. Besides that, it's a bit cold here in Chicago, ain't it? It was a roughly 40 degree swing from our departure from Miami on Sunday to arrival in Chicago. Good for me and my biking though. And it's definitely nice to be biking again. Got a few questions on the shaft drive on the way in today. Probably need to grease it up a little. Maybe. Oh, and maybe someone would want to go to the Drive-In this weekend? The Cascade Drive-In is showing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Iron Man as a double feature starting Friday. That sounds like an ideal drive in movie set. Too bad Tracy's working this weekend, or I'd definitely drag her out to that. I will go sometime this summer. That's for sure. A promise even.

Go down to the bike room, hop on the Sprint, seems like the front tire is a little low, get all the way out of the garage before giving it a squeeze, and yup, it's flat. Ugh. Ride back down, head back up, switch bags, come back, hop on the mtb and away I go to work. Nice and easy, but annoying. I wonder what caused the flat? And I thought the Marathon Plus tires were indestructible? I guess not, since something made it through. Ugh, I have to fight to get them on and off tonight. Not fun. Also, the garage ceiling project is overtaking the bike room, so I've got to find someplace else to put my bike, or bring it into the unit, but that's just a hassle. So I'll probably start just locking up outside. I guess I'll have to lock up both of them. Ugh. Just annoying. Last night, Tracy couldn't take it anymore and unpacked and cleaned up a little. I helped a little. Still working on photos from vacation. With Tracy's it ups the current count to 700. Tracy made steak, potatoes, tomatoes and peppers for dinner last night. Watched Desperate Housewives, The Office, 30 Rock and Samantha Who?.

So the flat yesterday, or more like the previous day? Hole in the tube from a spoke. Odd. There was a hole in the rim tape as well. Instead of getting new rim tape, I just duct tape'd the hole a couple times. Hopefully it'll hold up. Of course, getting the Marathon Plus on and off was not that easy. Got myself a couple little blood blisters because of it. But it definitely wasn't as hard as the first time. I actually brought the wheel upstairs, when I realized that I could just do that to fix my flat, instead of sitting down in the bike room. That was nice. Tracy made some pork and turkey meatballs and pasta for dinner. Something I ate yesterday definitely didn't agree with me, not quite sure what, as I felt overly full and bloated all last night, and actually slightly continuing into today. Odd. Not sure what to make of it. Watched House, a bit of Smallville, a couple episodes of The Big Bang Theory and an episode of How I Met Your Mother. Trying to plow through the stuff on the DVR. Headed out to Kuma's tonight with Russell and King. Hope my belly issues are resolved by then.

So, I think our emails from abando.com have been getting marked as spam by some places, even Gmail. Finally got around to checking up on it, and apparently some places check for SPF records, which I hadn't set up for the switch to Google Apps. So, got that changed, so hopefully our emails won't be so spammy anymore. Wait and see I guess. Rode up Elston last night from work to Kuma's. Got there around 5:45pm, and place was packed already, no seats at the bar, standing room only. Akira put his name in, an hour wait. No dice. Waited for Bryan and Russell to show up and headed up to La Finca instead for Mexican and margaritas. Good stuff. Decided to take it easy and head on home after dinner. Watched the end of Transformers and House with Tracy. Also realized we don't have to move the bikes out of the bike room, just that they need to make a new entrance to the bike room. Actually, ir probably won't affect me at all, since I'm leaving before they start work and get back after they finish for the day. Tracy's working this weekend. I've got a haircut tomorrow. Need to do a bunch of laundry. Might see my mom this weekend. Going out to the Argaos on Monday to BBQ. Oh, and need to upload photos from vacation and transcode some more episodes of Spice Up My Kitchen for the Cases.

Got rid of the the Gallery and the wedding websites. Frees up some disk space. I've tried to move most of the photos over to Flickr, but I haven't done the wedding ones yet. I'll get around to that eventually. Also need to take the next step and integrate Flickr with this website. Hopefully, won't be too hard. Still reading Harry Potter, up to Goblet of Fire. Long weekend was nice. Friday night Tracy and I walked down to The Wieners Circle for hot dogs, and then walked all the way down to Webster and Clark before heading back. Found a bunch of new restaurants we want to try. Watched House, Bones and How I Met Your Mother. Saturday got a haircut, just a bunch of lounging about, transcoded Spice Up My Kitchen episodes for Lisa and Ryan. Read some Harry Potter. Went down to Sai Cafe for dinner, walked over to Lincoln Avenue to check out the period dressing they've done for the John Dillinger movie with Johnny Depp that's filming. It's pretty cool to see. Watched Desperate Housewives and The Office. Sunday finally got around to the 5 loads of laundry that needed doing, watched Disturbia and In the Land of Women. Went over to Cozy's for dinner. And on Memorial Day went over to Argaos to grill, Tracy brought food, marinated chicken and beef. Stopped by Orland Square briefly on the way out. Watched Caffeine before leaving, and some Spice Up My Kitchen and Top Chef. Thinking my throat discomfort might be mucus related, so took some decongestant last night. Seemed to help. Will have to try again tonight.

Maybe it was the decongestant from the night before, or the 30-40 degree temperature shift and the commute to work without a hat on, but I didn't feel all that great yesterday. Made it home, and Tracy made me a dumpling soup for dinner. And that did make me feel better. Ended up watching Evan Almighty with dinner. It was good, but I'm happy we didn't go out to a theater to watch it. Felt good enough to make cookies for Tracy as well. Got Satellite up and running on the development box at home. Just need to wrap Daily Dose around it to make it look like it belongs. I tried to rent some movies on the Apple TV starting on Saturday, but I've been having some issues. Right now it's unable to check for downloads, and I've got 4 HD movies in the queue. According to the Apple Support Discussions this happens from time to time, with specific movies, and then magically resolves itself. My only complaint is that iTunes Store Support won't do anything because it was on an Apple TV, and I don't want to try and call Apple TV because I don't want to pay for support. It's stupid. I'll give it a week and if it doesn't get fixed, I'll try and get some refunds. The movie in question that seems to be causing the issues? Over Her Dead Body. Go figure.

Been pretty sleepy lately. Definitely hitting a wall around 10 or so. Kind of strange. Tracy made a sundried tomato pesto and chicken pasta for dinner last night. Finally got around to watching the Bones season finale, which felt rushed. Like it was a whole bunch of episodes all wrapped up into one, kind of like a shortened season ender. Annoying. I feel like they could, or they did have a much better idea of how to wrap it up. Other than that, updated my macs to 10.5.3, got my contacts syncing up with Google, which is cool and annoying. Got lots of contacts to clean up in the Address Book. Finished up Goblet of Fire last night and started up Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I don't actually remember if I finished this one or not. I think I did. Definitely want to watch the movies again.

Guess I pushed it a little on the ride home yesterday since I'm a little sore. Guess that's good. Just leftovers for dinner last night, cleaning out the fridge. Watched reruns of The Office and How I Met Your Mother before settling in to watch Grey's Anatomy. Pretty much all that's left on the DVR is episodes of Spice Up My Kitchen. Got a couple more to transcode for Lisa and Ryan. Headed up to Evanston for dinner and a movie with the Russells: Prairie Moon and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Not much tomorrow, my mom might come out, might head out to Katie Kelly's housewarming. Sunday Tracy's working, and if my mom doesn't come in to the city, I'll head out on the train for a bit. Get more Harry Potter reading in. And finally watch the movies I rented on the Apple TV, which finally downloaded yesterday. Guess they just have the occasional hiccup with some random movies. I think this time it was Over Her Dead Body. Should probably do a little bike maintenance, finally pick out colors for the new place, look over mortgage documentation (the appraisal was pretty much spot on, exactly what we paid, which is OK I think). Oh, Urbanathlon registration opens on Sunday, so have to decide whether I want to try and do it myself or not.

I think summer official starts when we start going to street festivals. Which we did on Sunday. We went to the Belmont/Sheffield Music Festival. It was walking distance, but was a very Wrigleyville crowd. Got some corndogs, a Philly cheesesteak, and a couple of beers, listened to some music, and headed home. Nice to be able to just walk and do that. Friday night went up to Evanston for couples date night with the Russells. Had dinner at Prairie Moon and then watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That's a fun ride. Makes me want to watch the first 3. Always interesting walking around Evanston, things just being so different from when I was there before. Saturday had breakfast at home, then went out to the paint store, checking out colors for the new place. My mom and Joy came in, so after mass we went to Shochu for dinner. I liked it, no one else did. Then we picked up desserts from Whole Foods, which was my mom's first time in one. Sunday, Tracy worked, so I went to dim sum with them to Phoenix Restaurant. It's pretty nice when you go at 8:30 in the morning. Nice and quiet. Came back up, watched 2 Fast 2 Furious finally and Fast Food Nation. After Tracy came home and a nap, we headed out for the festival. So that means summer's started for me. Oh, and finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and started Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Finished up Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Wow. Crazy. Only 1 left now. Probably finish that up this week as well, which means it only took me a month to finish the series. Definitely feels good to be in bookworld again. I missed it. Not sure what's gonna take the place of the Harry Potter Books. Maybe some Ludlum if I can find some. Would be nice if they just sold them as eBooks. Ugh. Trying out the training program for the Urbanathlon. Just resistance and flexibility last night. Supposed to go running tonight. I'll decide after this weekend if I do it solo or in a team. Leaning towards solo now. Otherwise, watched some reruns, had some Ramen for dinner, picked some colors, installed 9.2.2 on the Cube, and did some reading. Tracy tried sketching out our new living room and trying out some paints on it. Otherwise, not much going on. Whatever illness/sickness I had after Costa Rica is gone. So that's good.

Seriously. Went running for the first time in a long time when I got home from work yesterday. Seriously. All those muscles that I let atrophy, that I never use anymore. But it's something to get better at, and I'm sure I'll get better at it. It's just a matter of practice again. So even with being unable to run for a couple miles, I'm still leaning towards doing the Urbanathlon solo. Also, I won't be incredibly out of shape for Muddy Buddy. But I've still got until August to at least get in some kind of shape for it. Tracy made chicken tiki masala for dinner last night, out of a jar anyway. Good, but a little spicy. I tried making a blueberry loaf again, but completely undercooked it, so had to put it back into the oven to try and finish it after I turned it over on the wire rack and the middle oozed right through. Whoops. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a trip. Hard to put down. Pretty exciting. Got 40% left or so. Hard to give page numbers when reading on a Sony Reader. Didn't watch much TV, too busy reading.

Stayed up late and finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Reading all 7 consecutively is great. The weather was set perfectly for the finish as well, as it was cool, maybe a little chilly, and foggy. Pretty much perfect for the end. And something about the story, something about it has struck a chord in me, and it's left me with melancholy. I have this urge to watch the filmed versions this weekend, and might just do that. So with the books done, I'll probably take a little break from reading, and maybe try being a little productive when I get home from work, instead of plopping down on the couch. Did more training for the Urbanathlon last night. Tracy made skirt steak from a Rick Bayless recipe, since she saw him give a cooking demonstration at Green City Market yesterday on her day off. Watched a couple episodes of Top Chef.

Figured out I need to get DVDs of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Then I need to transcode them, get them on my iPhone, and watch them when I can. I've got too many movies on the DVR and the Apple TV for the weekend, and those have time constraints, so I want to get those out of the way. Otherwise, it's hot. And muggy. Bike riding isn't too bad, and having a server room to cool off in when I get to work makes a huge difference. Might even get to the point that I need to wear a hat while standing in front of the AC to prevent getting a cold. Tracy made Chicken Marsala for dinner last night and we watched Desperate Housewives. Going to see Iron Man tonight, headed out to Ribfest tomorrow night with JEspy.

Got 9 movies in this weekend. Started Friday night Tracy and I went and saw Iron Man finally. That was after I met up with her at the Pottery Barn on Michigan Ave, which was closing up on the 20th. So we picked up a couple tables, floor samples and clearance. One set of nesting tables for the deck and what we hope to be a cafe table behind the couch in the living room. After the movie, which was good, but not the best superhero movie ever which I had read, we picked up some frozen food from Dominick's for dinner. Didn't have time for a sit down since Tracy had to work in the morning. Saturday, with Tracy at work, I settled in and watched Reign Over Me, Even Money, and The Namesake. Also converted some more episodes of Spice Up My Kitchen for Lisa and Ryan. Tried going to Ribfest with JEspy, but it was raining, so we tried heading to Smoque, which was packed, so ended up at Gale Street Inn. Yum. Sunday I really picked up the movie watching. Heist, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Stardust, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I dropped off Tracy at Earwax Cafe where she had dinner with friends and I picked up Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on DVD. Yes, I'm still slightly hung up on the Harry Potter stories. I've got Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on the iPhone. Yes, slightly addicted. Oh, and I think it's Bike to Work week in Chicago this week. Exciting.

Had an unplanned early dinner with the in-laws in Chinatown last night. That was good, and different since we were done with dinner so early. Tracy picked me up on the way home from work, we went down to Chinatown, then got dropped off on the way back up to ride my bike home. It's definitely nicer riding later after rush hour. Watched the Super Bowl episode of How I Met Your Mother, which I don't think we had seen yet. Then we watched License to Wed, which I didn't know was set in Chicago. Otherwise, pretty quiet. Passed by a Bike to Work Week coffee station going down Wells on the way in to work this morning. Supposed to go to Frontera Grill/Topolobampo for dinner with April and Scott and Tracy.

Finally got dinner at Frontera Grill with Tracy and April and Scott. Good, but expensive. Even showing up at 5:30 there was a 30 minute wait, and by the time we sat, the wait was up to 1-1 1/2 hours. I was on my bike, so I just biked home, Tracy got a lift to a bus stop, then the Halsted bus home and I beat her there. I wasn't even going fast. Finished up watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Watched that pretty much just on the iPhone, during the morning cool down, a little at lunch, a little before bedtime. I put a charger on my nightstand so I can watch a little before bed, and not have to get up and walk over to the main charger. Lazy? Just a bit. Forgot to mention the whole WWDC 2008 from Monday, and the iPhone 3G announcement. 3G and GPS would be nice, but otherwise I'm happy with what I've got. I have a feeling I'll be even happier after the 2.0 OS update comes out in a month or so. I'm totally looking forward to some sort of task management app. Setting up reminders as events is a pretty half-assed method.

A bit cooler than I expected on the ride home last night. But not cool enough. Tracy actually made nachos for dinner. She got home later than usual because she went grocery shopping and Cubs traffic. Just means I got to finish off Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie. Also watched Top Chef, and we've got the Puerto Rico episodes to watch, even though I know who won because people put it as the title of their posts so it shows up in Google Reader. Oh well. Started watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and should finish that up today. Not sure what's next. Probably won't get rained on the way home.

Oh, scary. Not so much excitement going on. Finally folded laundry last night, while watching Grey's Anatomy. Followed that up with My Boys. Wasn't quite as funny as I remembered it. Tracy made a bacon/mushroom stuffed chicken breast and asparagus for dinner. I tried looking for something new to put on the iPhone to watch. Finished up Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which gets me right back into the funk I was in after finishing the books. I'm actually towards reading books 6 and 7 again. Not sure if I'd want to start all the way at the beginning again. Or maybe I do, now that I know everything, to see all the things that were missed. Don't really have any movie or TV show cravings right now. Oh, remembered that I can use OmniGraffle to do some furniture layout for the new place. Figured it'd be good to try that out, and easier to use than Sketchup, to see what furniture we should get. So that's one thing we'll be doing this weekend, checking out furniture, because we're closing in on closing, a little over 2 weeks. Crazy. Otherwise, might try and get out for Father's Day.

Home stuff really. Friday night had mini baked potatoes for dinner, watched Enchanted. Worked on the floorplan for 3535 N. Reta in OmniGraffle so we can figure out where to put furniture. Saturday biked down to Green City Market, kind of late, Tracy picked up 2 tomatoes, had a danish, and some more potatoes. Had lunch at Nookies, then wandered in to the Old Town Art Fair, since it was right there. Realized that's my dream neighborhood. It's all quiet residential streets for 51 weekends of the year, then for 1 weekend they get a street festival. That's ideal. Also helps that it's a very nice play to live. Headed back home to drop the bikes off, then back down via the Halsted bus to North and Clybourn for some shopping. Checked out furniture. Dropped by erewhon to see Russell. Had steak for dinner and continued working on the floorplan. Really wish I could use Sketchup to do it instead. So finally did a couple self guided tours, to get a better handling on how to use it. Sunday went to a Father's Day brunch with the in-laws at Duffy's Tavern & Bar, then hung out at Michael Argao's place for a bit, before walking back home. Got some ice cream at the Bobtail Soda Fountain. Got a rough floorplan in Sketchup, just the outside of the unit and the front openings for the windows/door. Want to keep trying, because that's the best way to see how furniture might fit, how pieces might go together, and colors too. Of course, besides making the floorplan in Sketchup, I have to make the furniture as well. No idea if I'm gonna be able to pull that off in the 2 weeks before closing.

So working forward towards our closing date of June 30, but that's actually not set in stone yet. And it's 13 days away. Hopefully it won't be a problem. Hopefully. Waiting and seeing. Still working on the floorplan though, this time in Sketchup, and now have some of the cabinets in place. Next up is the fireplace and try and do either some molding or a chair rail. See if I can pull that off. Worked on that last night, made the tocino for dinner, had The Departed on in the background which Tracy watched. Oh, also did my resistance training for the Urbanathlon. Another week and I'll register. Had lunch with Elinor today at Sushi Sai. Last time we had lunch on a workday was when Market Track was still in Evanston and I think she was still in school. Long time. And some things haven't changed. It'd be nice to have a lunch friend in the Loop.

Well, I knew something was gonna come up, but the sellers need to push the closing date back. Awesome. So now we're trying to figure out the best day taking into account rate lock expiration dates and schedules, to hopefully make it all work out. Shouldn't be any longer than a week though. I knew something was going to happen. Anyway, heading to Pottery Barn on Michigan Ave. tonight to try and put a couple tables into Tracy's car after work. Hopefully we can break them down a little to get them to fit. Also meant that I took the bus to work today, instead of biking in. Odd. Last night went for a run, or endurance training for the Urbanathlon. Tracy made stir fry for dinner. We watched Top Chef. That is a pretty good show. Might end up watching next season, even though it won't be in Chicago. I organized some eBooks, finding images of book covers. Some of the PDF's have some formatting issues, like text of Page # which I need to figure out how to get rid of. Just wish I could buy them from the eBook Store from Sony. I figured I have a little more time to work on a floorplan.

Ok, so our new estimated closing date is July 7. It's hard getting it all organized, especially because Tracy's scheduling is not easy to change or shift around on short notice. Hopefully this will be the only hiccup. Left work early last night to head up to Pottery Barn to pick up furniture. Took a while because someone decided to just wrap the table up without disassembling it. Also, they wrapped and tagged the wrong item for us, giving us a small ottoman table instead of the outdoor nesting tables, so we ended up getting brand new ones in the box instead of the floor samples. We also snuck in an outdoor console table that matches the nesting tables which we bought while waiting for our stuff to show up at the back door. Awesome. So we'll have some furniture when we move in eventually. Tracy made lamb chops for dinner, I did some resistance training, watched The Middleman, which I think is a cross between Eureka and Veronica Mars. Had to do some work from home, since I left early. Watched some show on the Food Channel about best places to pig out, and one made me want to get some oysters.

Watched Top Chef last night. Went running. Decided to do Time Machine backups again. Biked to work, thinking I might get to ride home in the rain, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Might play Speedminton tonight, finally. We'll see about that. Headed out to watch the Barclays Churchill Cup tomorrow at Toyota Park. Should be fun. Tracy's gonna go out furniture shopping in the meantime. She's working on Sunday, so not sure what I'm up to then. Maybe finally get around to working on my bike to get rid of the creaking again. Oh, trying to read Spook Country, but it's slow going. Not quite as exciting, or maybe it's just not the right topic for me like Neuromancer. And there's a new training plan up for the Urbanathlon. I need to get some cheap dumbbells or something to use as weights.

Friday night, got home, did Urbanathlon resistance training, Tracy made some teriyaki like chicken and stir fry veggies for dinner, and we watched Over Her Dead Body. That Paul Rudd's a funny guy. Saturday headed out to meet up with Russell, went over to Hot Doug's, had some more great sausages, then trekked down with a couple of Rick's friends to Toyota Park to watch the Barclays Churchill Cup. Took the Blue line to the Orange to a shuttle bus before ending up at the park, which was really nice, if not near the city at all. Watched some rugby, those are very big guys. Caught a ride back into the city with Joe Ferrari and Akira. That was much nicer than the long trek back through public transportation. Ended up going out for some ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery with Tracy when she got back from her day of furniture shopping. Sunday, she worked, so I watched The Game Plan, transcoded a few more Spice Up My Kitchens, worked a little on the floorplan, and made Guinness beef stew for dinner. Watched 27 Dresses, which of course I thought was pretty good. Got a call from the security company at work at 2am this morning, high/low temperature sensor went off in the server room, so I had to trek down there to check it out. Not a whole lot going on that early in Chicago. Got that taken care of, but get to leave work early to compensate. Which is good, because I'm dog tired.

Well, as much as it can be. But we have a closing date and time, July 7, 2pm. Sweet. A little less than 2 weeks away. Got all the down payment and closing costs together, and just waiting to write the check. Awesome. So the furniture purchases can actually start up in earnest, knowing when we'll be there. Tracy actually bought a chair and ottoman yesterday. Lucky her, she had yesterday and today off. Got home early enough yesterday to try and play Speedminton outside, which was fun, once we moved to a less windy location. I like it. Then Tracy made macaroni chicken salad, we kind of watched Evening, and I did my Urbanathlon resistance training and did some computer work, like renaming The Unit transcodes. Still reading Spook Country, and it's picking up a little bit, but still slow reading.

Still working on the floorplan in Sketchup, and it's quite frustrating at times. Selection, unions, intersections, all seem to happen inconsistently. At least, the program isn't doing what I'm expecting it to do. For all I know that's the way it's supposed to work. So still working on it. Figured out scenes, and possibly animations, so that might be cool. Last night went for a run, Tracy made eggplant parmigiana for dinner, watched Shrek the Third. Also a bit of What Women Want. Rode in the rain on the way to work this morning. Doesn't look like I'll be riding home in the rain though. Really need to pick up some sort of weight system, or at least some type of resistance, maybe jugs of water. Also having some random database problems on my shared hosting service. Might be time to start seriously considering setting up our own hosting service through EC2. Just get the wheels in motion.

Birthday wishes to my mother today. We're going to dinner at Jin Ju tomorrow night. Figured instead of trying to find a new place that we'd all like, we'd go with a tried and true good restaurant we all like. Otherwise, pretty low key, which is probably the calm before the storm. Forgot my iPhone at home yesterday, which meant I was without all day yesterday. Felt completely naked without it. Like walking around in circles because my left front pocket was empty. And I totally can't wait until OmniFocus comes out for the iPhone. I really should reread Getting Things Done to refresh my memory, or I could just put it on the list. Did more resistance training for the Urbanathlon. It's good stuff. Makes me think of the CrossFit stuff Joe Ferrari and Russell were talking about last Saturday. I looked at the PDFs of the training routines again, this time with photos, and I'm not getting low enough on my spider crawls. Kind of watched The Middleman last night. I think I'm moving it off the DVR. Not quite good enough. Kind of like it's trying too hard, but with too low of production values. Started to use Sketchup for the new work floorplan, besides for the new home. Definitely good to know keyboard shortcuts to tools and views. Oh, decided to try and recalibrate my MacBook battery, as sometimes the battery level would drop from 5 lights to 1 flashing about 5 minutes after unplugging. Hopefully it'll help. Also started ripping more DVDs. The HDHomeRun's AC adapter went bad, so the Mac mini is kind of waiting around doing nothing.

Until we close. Crazy. Last night cleaned up a little, since the parents are coming in to town. Have to leave work early to get up home to get to dinner at Jin Ju. Otherwise, watched My Boys, had leftovers, went running (for distance instead of speed). Started transcoding some DVDs. Got the new AC adapter for the HDHomeRun. Organized, a little bit. The battery recalibration seemed to go ok. Battery health is back up to 40% according to iStat Pro. Better than the 7% it was showing earlier this week. Got a haircut tomorrow. Probably gonna order up some furniture this weekend as well. That should be fun. Tracy's gonna start checking out accessories and furnishings, like vases, artwork, bamboo stuff. She's also got a craigslist addiction going on right now. Oh, Pride parade is this weekend. And that's about it.

Friday night dinner at Jin Ju was good, as always. Don't really need reservations for 6pm on a Friday night though. Walked around a bit afterwards, before heading home. Parents just headed home, Tracy and I walked a bit more, since it was so early. Saturday Tracy made french toast because she had a hankering, while I went for a run. Then we went out to Oakbrook Center for some final furniture shopping, or picking. Finally picked out dining room chairs. And decided on some deck furniture. And I really like Arhaus, I'd say it's a classier Z Gallerie or Pier 1 Imports. Room & Board seems pretty fancy and modern. Then we headed over to Hollywood Boulevard, and since we were early enough, got to see Wanted. It's as crazy as I though it'd be, and Tracy didn't like it too much, because it's a serious boy movie. Afterwards, we went to her parents house to pick up some dumbbells, which should help my resistance training for the Urbanathlon. Sunday had waffles for breakfast, then tried to watch a little of the Chicago Pride Parade, which could have gotten ugly when some religious protesters showed up. But some cops showed up and moved 'em on their way. Then it started raining. Ordered some furniture online. Watched some TV. Tracy made pork chops for dinner, I dipped some strawberries in chocolate. I worked on transcoding the Las Vegas (tv show) episodes. And now there's a week left before we close.

Definitely around the corner. Also seems like lots of people are on vacation. Commutes are pretty empty, traffic is light. Not bad. Last night went to Taste of Chicago, meeting up with Tracy. Nothing too memorable, but want to hit up Las Tablas again. Ride home was nice, and now that I'm getting up to speed on my bike, I'm thinking my bike is the slow part of the equation. Gearing won't let me go any faster. Oh well. Have to decide on whether to wait for all the furniture to come in, or send out 2 deliveries, one for in stock items and another when all the backorder/special order items come in. Would be nice to have some furniture to use. Also have to start thinking of what to pack and bring over. I can't wait to see what's left, all the detritus, the sediment that will settle to the bottom once the current takes us over to the new place. Seriously. A clean slate is a nice thing to have.

Apparently we could have closed tomorrow, as the seller was available, but they only found that out on Monday. And Tracy and I can't get time off that quickly. Either way, 5 days left. Just picked up content insurance. Another item to check off the list. Worked some more on the floorplan in Sketchup last night. Still figuring out how to do some stuff, which means I'll definitely redo the whole thing after we get measurements of everything. But redoing it should be quicker, now that I'm getting more comfortable with the program. Getting the animations to mimic a walkthrough should be interesting. Right now I don't think I have enough intermediate steps, so you end up moving through cabinets or walls. Also have to spend the time to make the accent chair from Arhaus. The curves should make it interesting. Otherwise, did Urbanathlon resistance training with weights. A whole lot harder with weights. Transcoding of Las Vegas (tv show) plods on, and should be done with the 2nd season soon. Also transcoded The Holiday. Wish I knew how to pull plot summary and description info from iTunes Store listings. Tracy made roasted chicken thighs/legs with veggies for dinner. Forgot to mention that I started using some Shiseido cleanser. Also got some matte/anti-oil stuff as well. That would have come in handy for the wedding photos. But it's some good stuff.

And counting. Went for a run last night, even if it was drizzling a little. Seems like they got ride of the mile markers on the lake front path, so I drew my run out quickly on Google Maps and it's only like 1 1/2 miles. Whoops. I'll have to start lengthening it out tomorrow. Watched The Middleman. It's kind of getting better. Kind of. I wonder if I'd like it better with a bigger budget. Otherwise, still more floorplan work. Decided to try and redo it all. This was after figuring out there's a whole lot of existing components, like cabinets, windows, doors and the like that I don't have to make myself. So it should make things a little easier the 2nd time around. Maybe I'll give it another go, and not put down a floor until the end. Hmmm. Tracy made lamb chops for dinner, potatoes and broccoli. I finally made some mini cobblers; peach, peach & raspberry, and one raspberry and strawberry. Pretty easy. Have a 4 day weekend coming up, but Tracy's working, so I think I have to start packing, taking some stuff down, getting ready to get it moved. Exciting.

Last night nothing special. Tracy made a chicken pot pie type dish. Good, but not necessarily traditional pot pie filling. Also, had to make a grocery run after resistance training to get ice cream for the cobblers I made the night before. Ended up watching My Boys, and getting annoyed with a giant fly that's buzzing around the condo. On Independence Day, nothing too special since Tracy was working. Got up with her, watched Pathfinder, picked up some Keen Venice H2's from erewhon and visited with Russell for a bit, did my run, had some leftovers for dinner, watched Finding Amanda, made turkey sloppy joes for dinner, watched Waitress with Tracy, then went down to Diversey to watch the fireworks. Gonna go mattress shopping tomorrow. Oh, took down some shelves today. Supposed to start packing up some other stuff tomorrow. Not sure when we're actually gonna start living at the new place. Kind of have to wait for furniture.

Well, it's done. Tracy and I are homeowners. Closing went smoothly yesterday afternoon. The seller's attorney actually gave us the keys before everyone got there actually, since the seller wasn't there, and so we wouldn't forget them when we left. So I guess we missed out on that little bit of theater. But we walked back from the attorney's office, picked up a bottle of bubbly, actually headed back to 3550 N. Lake Shore Dr. Unit 601, packed up the car with a few things, some glasses, dish towels, a couple of tables, and headed over. It's great. But empty. We're getting a new mattress delivered tonight. Some of the furniture from Crate & Barrel is on backordered, so we're playing the waiting game to see if they come in soon enough so we only have to pay for a single truck delivery. Ordered some more stuff from Pottery Barn. Need to measure once more for Room & Board dresser and night stands. And of course we need to pack up the stuff we do use, and drag that over. And have to get cable, internet and phone set up. So even more spending. But it's so nice have a clean blank slate for Tracy and I to make our own. Other than that, Tracy worked all weekend. I'd get up and watch Joan of Arcadia, which is really good on HDNet, and then go back to sleep. Watched The Ten, Night Watch, Day Watch, Hairspray, Resident Evil: Extinction on Saturday and Sunday. Took down any wall hangings and patched up screw holes. Bought the new mattress Saturday after Tracy got home from work, had dinner at Halsted's Bar and Grill. Transcoded a couple more episodes of Spice Up My Kitchen. Had the final walkthrough of 3535 N. Reta #4 Sunday night. Everything checked out. Monday had waffles (my best effort yet) and bacon, made some blueberry compote. Went to the closing. Had dinner at Taco Burrito Palace II.

Had our first dinner at 3535 N. Reta Ave. Unit 4 last night. Had to be there to take a mattress delivery, so Tracy wandered over to Whole Foods and picked us up some dinner. Ate up on the roof, sitting on the deck. Very nice. Put together the console and nesting tables for the deck as well. Also set up schedules for the thermostat, since we aren't living there yet. Things we need to remember: post it notes, to label light switches, of which there are many, and kitchen cabinets, for organization, like utensils, dishes, glasses, and so on. Looks like I'm going to have my own little baking nook, which is pretty cool. We won't get in the way of each other while she makes dinner and I make dessert. I also looked at the current AV wiring setup, and will try and make some sense of it, and figure out what I want to do and how I'm gonna do it. Otherwise, came back to our other home, Tracy packed up a couple more boxes, I put another coat on the patching I had done over the weekend from removing the wall hangings, and watched another episode of Joan of Arcadia. Oh, and I finally got Time Machine back up and running. I just had to reselect the network share as the location to back up to, and away it went. So that's good. Maybe I should actually try and restore something to see if it works.

Tracy packed up 4 more boxes last night which we brought over to the new place after dinner. Also brought the Cobb grill, and the leaning bookshelf. Wandered up to the deck to get some air, then back to the old place. Sketched up a couple different dressers to see how they'd look in the bedroom, and then ordered one and some night stands from Room & Board. Oh, and ordered a grill from Ace Hardware. Slowly coming together. Watched another episode of Joan of Arcadia. Still not sure how I want to handle home automation, if at all, or audio/video distribution, especially since wireless HDMI or HD signals won't be coming for a couple months. Headed back over tonight, I think. Woke up this morning fairly congested, which was weird. It'd be a shame if I was coming down with something.

New iPhone software update was released this morning, just as I was about to leave for work. I wisely chose to wait until tonight to do the upgrade. Otherwise, I would have been sans phone for the day, since there are/were issues with the reactivation process. Hopefully it'll be all nice and quick when I try it tonight. Also means I'm gonna try and set up getting work email on it as well. Which could be construed as a bad thing. We'll see. Rode home in the rain last night, but not the bad thunderstorms. That showed up after I went to the new place, dried off some clothes in the dryer in our unit, helped Tracy bring some stuff up from Bed Bath & Beyond, then headed back to the old place, and then the thunder and lightning hit. Leftover spaghetti for dinner. Watched another Joan of Arcadia. Started Point of Impact yesterday. Oh, also went upstairs to grab some more stuff we had in storage in the other condo. Our place is pretty crazy right now, lots of stuff out, boxes everywhere. Room & Board dressers and nightstands are getting delivered tomorrow. Going to get paint for the master bedroom tonight. Another moving run tonight as well. Painting this weekend. And totally off my exercise and training schedule. But trucking boxes up and down 4 flights of stairs has to come for some sort of physical activity, right?

Well, a week being homeowners and it's actually starting to feel a little lived in now. We seem to at least have moved enough to start eating meals over there, even if we don't have chairs to sit on or tables to eat on. Moved more stuff over Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Made my first Home Depot run as a homeowner, and could have spent even more than I did for all sorts of home stuff. Also painted the master bedroom, starting on Saturday night and finishing up on Sunday. Also got nightstands and a dresser from Room & Board Saturday morning. Brought over the Apple TV to have something to watch. Need to pick up some more paint today to finish off the accent wall and tray ceiling. Also looking into getting a different wall mount for the TV in the living room, so it can pivot out and we can watch from the kitchen. Trying to decide between a Peerless SA760PU or PLA60-UNL. Dual or single arm, but just need the 180° swivel is all. Also brought over the Aeron chair on Sunday to have something to sit on. Friday night did last sort of bike maintenance on the bikes in the garage. Brought over the bike stand and tools to the new place, and no longer have to carry them up and down stairs anymore.

Picked up some more paint on the way home from work. Used the little folding baskets on the bike. I really need to get some sort of strap system, not bungie cords, because those are unsafe. Dropped that off at the new place, then had to lug the 6 new folding deck chairs from the vestibule up into our unit. That was fun. Then headed back to the old place for dinner, then back to the new place to paint the accent wall in the bedroom. Also brought laundry over, so I got to do our first load of laundry. Which was awesome. Took me a while to get the TV back on the wall in the master bedroom. Thinking of maybe just using the Apple TV as a video source in there until wireless HDMI comes of age, or I figure out how I want to get the place rewired. Works pretty well. Need to get an DVI-HDMI cable to try and plug the Mac mini into the other TV. Also moving phone service over to the new place. Next up: cable/internet.

I really need to catch up on sleep. I'd say I'm in the negative on that. But shouldn't have to stay up too late anymore. Made another moving run last night, Tracy had packed up more of the kitchen stuff, appliances, spices and so on. After that we headed over to Halsted's for dinner, which is our go to place now because it's so close. Came back, I put another coat on the accent wall in the master bedroom, and Tracy unpacked the folding deck chairs. Then we had to get ride of the boxes, since all 6 were packed individually. Hopefully the boxes will get picked up my recycling at some point. More stuff we have to worry about. We did mean another of our neighbors last night, on our way out the door. Wondering if we should do some sort of formal introduction to the building. Would be nice, wouldn't it? Decided to try out Comcast for cable/internet. Just a trial run. If not, can also just cancel and switch over to RCN again. Or maybe go with DSL. Wait and see. Headed out on the train tonight to the Argaos; Gabe, Sania, and Ella are in town.

Met Ella, Sania and Gabe's daughter, Tracy's niece, my niece-in-law, or just plain niece, last night. She's tiny, and cute, and 9 1/2 weeks old. Very cute. Absolutely adorable. Had dinner out at the Argaos, Momma Argao made pot roast, and ginataan for dessert. Also borrowed a ladder, so we can finish painting the little accent in the tray ceiling in the master bedroom. And then we'll be done painting. Tracy had the day off today, and her family came up to visit, check out the new place, baby too. They also brought up the chair she got from Arhaus, which makes one more piece of furniture we have. Supposed to get phone service installed today. Oh, finally got some passport photos taken, and I'll get my renewal out in the mail tomorrow. Finally. Good thing I don't have any plans to leave the country. Oh, and it's hot outside.

Kind of been a crazy week, lots going on, and next week should be even crazier, since Market Track is moving their Chicago office. It's just down the street a block, but still, got things to pack up, move around, take apart, it's crazy. Crazy I tell you. Met Tracy at the new place after work yesterday, then headed over to Cozy's for dinner before she had a haircut at 8:15. I walked some boxes back, moved the phones/answering machine from the old to the new, since phone service was successfully moved over. Yay. Cable/Internet get installed tomorrow, along with delivery of a deck dining table. Tracy's picking up the grill tonight from Ace Hardware, and I apparently didn't have to order online and ship to store, as they had them in stock, but I didn't know, and didn't bother to check. Next time. And I realized that the Ace Hardware on Clark and Wellington is closer than the Home Depot on Halsted and Schubert. Hmmm, good things to know. Also got another BBQ at the Argaos on Saturday afternoon, Ella's coming out party on Sunday in Chinatown. Oh, and finish painting the master bedroom. And probably move the computers over as well. And should have a new wall mount for the TV in the living room so we can watch in the kitchen as well.

Friday night made it home, carried the grill up from Tracy's car in the new place, also the new wall mount for the living room TV. Assembled the new grill, so Tracy could make dinner. Then put the new wall mount together and on the wall. It's awesome. Can totally watch TV while working in the kitchen now. Do need to get a Flat Power Strip Liberator so the mount can fold flatter against the wall though. Was supposed to do some painting, but the wall mount took a long time. Went back to the old place to sleep. Back to the new place Saturday morning for the alarm setup, which went fine, the delivery of the Pottery Barn dining table for the roof, which also went fine, and the Comcast install, which of course, didn't go fine. They were late, but managed to call 3 minutes before the end of the window, to say they'd be late because too many defective set top boxes, so had to pick up more from the warehouse, except they didn't have any, so instead they just came out to install internet. Which they did. Which worked for 15 minutes. Then Tracy, coming back from picking up some more stuff from the old place, said the installers were up on ladders in the alley. And then the internet stopped working. Sweet. Anyway, had to head out to the Argaos for a family BBQ. Ended up seeing The Dark Knight at the Woodridge 18 at 9:45pm, got tickets around 8:15pm, got to the theater about 20 minutes before the show, and managed to get decent seats. Good movie, but long. Slept out there Saturday night, then headed out shopping at a bunch of places on Sunday. Need to have measurements of windows and closet shelves before shopping again. Having wall colors handy would help as well. Then a multi-course meal for Ella's coming out party at Phoenix Restaurant. Lots of food. Even got to hold Ella for an extended period. Very cute. Then finally did a little painting in the master bedroom, since we got furniture delivered today. Including a dining room table. Except that some of it needs to be assembled. Awesome. Still lots of stuff to do, and try and get cable and internet working again. Ugh. Maybe we should have just gone with RCN.

Finished up the tray ceiling last night, at least, I hope I finished up the tray ceiling. Had to go ahead and tape off the top molding, as I wasn't good enough just using the brush. Hopefully I taped well enough, and won't have to go back to do more touchups. Tracy put together the dining room table, and only needed help getting the table top on. Still have the chairs in the boxes. The deck furniture wasn't as big as I thought it was, or our deck is bigger than I thought it was, either way, there needs to be some accessories up there, like plants and stuff. Bed and bench are up against the wall, waiting to be assembled. I think that'll be the first stuff that goes together. Now we have to find places to put boxes, or at least keep track of when recycling comes through, which I think was Thursdays, so boxes don't hang out for extended periods in our neighbor's parking spots. Living room rug and trunk looks good. It's nice to have some carpet. Tracy's starting to get a little disheartened with the slow pace of moving, but I figure we should be mostly good by the weekend, and just decorating after that. Of course then we have to start fixing up the old place. Sweet. Headed out tonight to Maggiano's in Oak Brook for a last family dinner with Gabe, Sania, and Ella before they head back east tomorrow.

So the tape job wasn't so good. Lots of leaking, not so even, so some of the old blue peeks through in spots. Not good at all. So I'll have to go back in and do some serious touch up work. Took the train down to Midlothian last night, Tracy picked me up and we cruised up 294 to get to Maggiano's in Oak Brook. Last chance to see Ella before they visit again in October. Came back into the city, dropped off some more stuff that Tracy bought for the house, found out about my poor painting job. Plan to put the bed together tonight, and the bench, then take the chairs out of the boxes, oh, and put the umbrella up on the deck dining room table, and then put the desk together. Then comes the touch up painting. Still not sure what I want to do AV-wise. Still want to put together a completed Sketchup model. Oh, and call in and get another Comcast appointment. Ugh.

So my plans were a little off for last night. Ended up putting the umbrella up first. Fairly easy. It's tall though. Way taller than anything else in the neighborhood. Awesome. Tracy made some sort of steak and veggie stir fry over mashed potatoes, which we ate on the deck, at the dining table, on the folding chairs, under the umbrella. After that I went to work on the bedroom furniture, getting the bed together, and then spending more time and effort on getting the bench together. But everything worked out. The wood on the bed and bench don't match the nightstands and dresser exactly, but it's close enough, and Tracy had picked out a perfect sized rug for the bedroom too. She also got the dining rooms chairs out of the boxes and set up in the living/dining room. So seriously coming together. All that's left is the desk to put together tonight, and then some wall hangings, and then waiting for the couch, and decorating. And, we're planning on actually sleeping there tonight. First time. Only 17 days after we bought it. Nice. We'll have to pack up some clothes at the old place, probably not all of them. It's a good chance to do some closet cleaning out as well. Speaking of the old place, the remote is on the fritz, and I need to reconfigure it, which I can't at the old place because there is no internet, and the Harmony remotes use the internet to configure, which is awesome. I should probably just take it to the new place, and just use the old remotes at the old place. This just means we haven't been watching any TV for the past week or so. Just using the Apple TV.

Finally slept there last night. Made a couple of moving trips, packed up a lot more stuff, including clothes and pillows and our duvet. Put the desk together, picked up some cold cuts for dinner, then after the 2nd moving trip sat down and got computers/internet up and running. Had to call Comcast and get the cable modem reregistered. Again. But it's working. And the home network is completely wireless, which means it's slow, well, slower for some slinging movie files around. For example, I wanted to get Shooter on my iPhone since I'd be busy all day with Market Track moving and might have some down time to watch something. But it was going to take forever this morning. Oh, and I'm having issues once again with my firewire enclosure. Now I think it's related to the power supply, having issues delivering enough juice for 8 drives. And it's really loud. If I can't move it into the closet, I may have to start looking at getting something quieter for Time Machine backups and media storage. Maybe a Time Capsule? Definitely have to get another Apple TV. Oh, had some trouble sleeping last night, it being a new bed and space and all. Showering was different, felt very much like a hotel shower. Nice though. Definitely feels like home now. Especially with internet access.

Well, big weekend. Friday night was the Market Track move down the street, which ended up being a pretty late night, even though it was our second time doing it. Figure we might be a little more versed in the process, but I still didn't get to go home until 4am, and then had to be back around 8:30am. Awesome. Bike riding home at 4am is interesting though, just cause the only people out are those going home for the places that close at 4am. Which is a surprising amount of people. But definitely nice and quiet. Saturday, only had to go in to work until 1pm or so. Then headed to the old home to pick up the AV Receiver, to try and get some music for the party. Took me a while, but it works. Using the Remote app on the iPhone to control music piping throughout the house? Pretty sweet. If they could only do volume control. I'll have to wait and see what sort of iPhone home automation stuff people can come up with before deciding what I want to do. Would be nice to be able to control it all from my phone. But the new place, at least the deck, very conducive to socializing. Lisa and Ryan were in town, and they stayed with us, so we had Bonnie and Ray, Jespy, the Russells, Tony and Carlo over to hang out. Tracy worked the grill, which is a little small for entertaining. Otherwise, pretty nice. Didn't really see any fireworks from Venetian Night, Chicago gets in the way. Didn't stay up too late, since I was running on 2-3 hours of sleep. Lisa and Ryan and Jespy spent the night, and Sunday morning April joined us and we made it over to Nookies Tree for breakfast, and got there early enough that we didn't wait too long. Hung out at home for a little bit longer before everyone checked out. Tracy and I went out to do some more shopping, Home Depot, Pier 1 Imports, Bed Bath & Beyond and Target. And the place is getting closer. Got a paper towel holder installed. Shoe rack. Plunger. Getting closer.

Had a meeting with Jason last night. Things are moving along there. Tracy made pasta with with the leftover grilled veggies, as well some Italian sausage and real roasted garlic bread. Also started hanging stuff on the walls. First up was the clock above the stairs. Not sure what's next, but there's lots to do. I also scheduled up some stuff for the DVR, which from Comcast is the same model as the one from RCN, just running a different software/firmware. Got to get used to it again, and it's again because it's the original interface that RCN used before switching to the Passport software. I do not like how channels are out of order, and they are very jumbled up, at least with the HD channels, so broadcast is mixed up with cable and premium channels. Kind of annoying. And I still don't know what the exact channel lineup is, since there's 5 areas, and some old and digital rebuild areas. Also managed to change the home network to a WDS, which should hopefully get me better coverage on the roof deck. I want to pick up the old Airport Express from my parents place in Woodstock and put it in the master bedroom somewhere to extend the network a little bit that way as well. Of course, that means replacing that one with something new, maybe a Time Capsule. Oh, also dropped by the old place to pick up my bike bags, and the charging station. Got a milk shake from Cold Stone Creamery to tide me over on the way.

Leftovers for dinner last night. Went through bills and stuff, setting up auto pays where applicable. Started looking for a garbage/recycling solution for the kitchen, taking shelves out of cabinets, trying to find a space that fits some preexisting solution. But no luck. Did find a really cool recycling center that fits into a corner cabinet, where a lazy susan would go. Where does the term lazy susan come from anyway? But our cabinets are kind of custom, so I'm not sure if it would completely fit in the space. Very annoying. I totally want a pull out trash, top mounted, like my parents have in their kitchen, but the available cabinet isn't big enough, unless I try and make my own, which I might do. Annoying. Tracy organized the deck wet bar area with outdoor dishes and glasses. Finally got around to doing another Time Machine backup, which took forever. Home network is 802.11b/g/n since it's set up as a WDS, and I don't think I want to double up on access points, although it is tempting.

Picked up some cabling supplies and a mattress protector on the way home from work yesterday. A few more of the Cable Cuffs I was using to keep the Wald folding baskets temporarily attached broke, so I might have to look into a more permanent solution to keeping them on my bike. Not sure what though, maybe some P-Clamps or something. Tracy made some Italian sausages, peppers and onions on bread for dinner. Watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog via Hulu over dinner. Had some issues with the DVR, I think from the giant storm from the previous night and some possible lightning activity nearby. But a reboot seemed to do the trick. Ended up watching Feast of Love, which was an Apple TV Rental from way back that expires soon, while folding and putting away more of my clothes. I think I might have figured out how to program Tracy's car garage door opener, which I'll have to try tonight, which means I can just use the one we got, so I don't have to get another one. That'd be nice, instead of having to go around the side door all the time, open the garage door from the inside to put my bike in. Need to get different cabling stuff, since the cheap route I tried didn't work. Might try hanging some more stuff today, maybe the paintings above the bed.

Oh yeah, Muddy Buddy is this weekend, on Sunday morning, bright and early. With all the moving, it's sort of taken a back seat, and I really haven't been training for the past three weeks like I had been for the Urbanathlon, which I'm not sure I'll end up doing. But definitely running on Sunday. Which is funny because I woke up this morning with a huge calf cramp. Hoping it doesn't hurt me too bad for the race. We, Tony, Carlo, Russell and I are headed out tomorrow night to stay at some hotel, because the race starts so early on Sunday, like we have to show up at 5:30 or 6 to pick up race packets or something. Crazy. So that should be fun. Tracy's working this weekend, so she doesn't get to watch. And I've got a haircut tomorrow so I should look nice and pretty for the race. Last night Tracy roasted some chicken thighs, which tasted a whole lot better in our new place, compared to the old place. Didn't actually hang anything, but did manage to get the car's HomeLink garage door opener programmed. Watched some Smallville and Supernatural. Tracy also finally picked up some guest permits, so now friends can park on the street. I'm having some wireless network issues, I think just with my MacBook, but not sure. Could be WDS related, or because I have a b/g/n network set up, or the Airport Extreme not playing nicely with the Airport Express. Not sure. Or maybe interference with neighboring networks? Who knows. Have to find tools to figure out why.

Muddy Buddy. Aside from some occasional running, the most physical activity I've had since Paganello in 2006. 2 years. Awesome. But it was fun. Kind of like going back in time to playing ultimate and going to tourneys. Hanging out with the guys, eating out, talking about all sorts of things. It's a good time. I'll admit it, I miss it. The camaraderie. The race itself was fun, if a little challenging just because I haven't run that much in a long time. Obstacles weren't bad, the biking was easy, mostly because of Russell's speed demon. It was just the running that was killer. Rick and I had a little competition going with the B-R brothers, and since we were in the beast division, used a time per pound formula to determine the winner, who gets brunch, or possibly milk shakes. We have to have a weigh in, because the times and ratios with estimated weights come out pretty close. Friday night Tracy made some concoction with ground turkey and croutons and watched Eureka in HD. Also got some Cold Stone. Saturday, hung out with my parents, they finally got to see the new place, and they liked it. Then packed up and met the boys down at erewhon for the trek out to Elgin for Muddy Buddy. I was early, so picked up Watchmen and started reading that. Had Bennigan's, one of the ones that didn't close, for dinner, just 2 hotels down from the Hampton Inn where we were staying. Rented Iron Man, and I fell asleep. Early start, run the race, and done by 9am on Sunday. Washed up back at the hotel, then headed back into the city. Got brunch at Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop. Tony was nice enough to drive me home. Did a load of laundry of my Muddy Buddy clothes, took a nap. Tracy and I tried out Sola for dinner, since we had a coupon. Good place. Found a couple places too look for more furnishings on Lincoln Ave. Then an early bedtime.

So big storm last night. Tornado Warning even. Heard the sires go off, and it wasn't even the first Tuesday of the month at 10am! Even had Lakeview listed on the weather reports and the National Weather Service announcements on the TV. Tracy and I got some blankets, put some real clothes on, found a light, some candles, a rain jacket, and watched TV from the kitchen, just waiting for 8:30pm to pass. And so it did. Just lots of rain, thunder and lightning. Deck furniture actually faired ok, the umbrella didn't blow away or break in half, just moved a little over. We did however notice that some of our windows were leaking, so we put some towels down. Need to figure out where it's coming from, and work with the seller to see if it's anything serious. Hopefully it's not. Otherwise, Tracy made some pork for dinner. I need to find a quieter solution for data storage, as the firewire enclosure is just too loud. Maybe a Drobo? Just need something quiet. And I've got a lot of wiring issues to deal with. But I'm still pretty tired and sore from Muddy Buddy. Think we're moving some more stuff tonight after work.

Met Tracy at the old place yesterday. Apparently they also had some leaking from the storm 2 nights ago. Tracy had packed some more boxes. I went searching for some stuff I needed, but couldn't find. Like the IR repeater extension cable. I really hope I didn't just throw it away as junk. It was $40. Picked up some Popeye's for dinner on the way to the new place, well, not really on the way to the new place. Actually, moving the boxes actually made my legs feel a bit better. Got our shelf liners from The Container Store. Watched Mad Men with dinner. Finally figured out which RG6 cable in the wall to use for the cable in the bedroom. Took a while, but we have cable in the bedroom now. Just need to figure out which one is the other F connector, and I can shove them back into the wall and out of sight. I've got lots to clean up, cabling, 2nd bedroom stuff, move the Mac mini back out of the closet. No real place to put it though. Unless I get a Drobo. Maybe I'll start putting the receiver and the DVR into the furniture we're going to use as storage. Just have to drill holes for wires, or even cut off the back for cooling. Maybe stick on some fans, if I still have those at the old place. Eh. I'll probably drop by the old place on the way home to see what I can find.

So if I walk over and take the bus to work in the morning, I walk right by Au Bon Pain. That's not good. Let's hope I get the cravings out of the system soon, or get back to riding the bike, or otherwise I'll be packing on the pounds even more so. Not to mention the Krispy Kreme in Union Station is only 2 blocks away, well within walking distance. Not good at all. Anyway, took the bus home last night, stopped by the old home to pick some stuff up. Finally brought over the water pik, also found the IR extension cable. It was in the audio equipment drawer. Brought back the Cube as well, and some various AV cables, just in case. Tracy had been brined a pork tenderloin from the day before, so she cooked that up along with a vinegar based potato salad and some green beans. Finally put the AV equipment into the storage cube after cutting a section out to run cabling. It was loud, so we moved it up to the deck to finish sawing it out. Wish I could have fished the IR extension cable through the wall with the RG6 cables, but I have no idea how they managed to do it in the first place. Right now that's the only cable that's out of place. And it's pretty ugly, but it's extremely useful, since we just point the remote(s) at the TV instead of up at the TV and down at the DVR. Might try putting up the mirror and the medicine cabinet up in the second bathroom today.

Hung up the mirror and a cabinet in the second bedroom last night. Furniture assembly is getting easier. Hanging stuff I'm still getting used to, but knowing what I'm drilling and screwing into wall-wise is great. So now we have some actual storage in the second bathroom. Still need to check on that light though. Next up I think is maybe some hooks for grilling stuff on the deck console table, maybe hanging more stuff in the living room. Maybe I should get some sort of leveling application for my iPhone. Actually, could use a straight edge, that would come in handy. Also did a load of laundry. Which was awesome. No waiting, no worrying, and actually forgot about it for a bit. Also managed to set up the Mac mini in the second bedroom, or the studio or library as it's going to be. Have a Drobo on the way, so I'll be getting rid of my firewire enclosure. As long as it's much quieter. Also have a corner recycling center on order, and hopefully it'll fit, and if not, it goes back. But then we'd actually have a garbage in the kitchen. Going to Green City Market tomorrow, and first breakfast at the new place. Also Northalsted Market Days are this weekend, so that should be interesting. Going to also try and find some window and door treatments this weekend as well. And some sleep.

Tracy and I finally got to spend an entire weekend at our new place. It was awesome. Friday night got home, went around the corner to have dinner at Las Mananitas. Good margaritas, and they put us down for the night after splitting 3 entrees since they didn't have good enough combination plates. Saturday, planned on making waffles, but didn't have any of my baking supplies, so went with crepes instead. But before that we ventured down to the Green City Market on our bikes. Ate up on the deck, lounging about in the living room. After brunch we took the bikes west to North Center, looked around Curtain Couture for window treatments and Homey for a floor vase, wandered around a couple antique/thrift stores and Trader Joe's and CB2 before heading home. Tracy had put a dry rub on some spare ribs so those went on the grill for a while and we enjoyed the music from Northalsted Market Days. It was like having a band for our deck. Very nice. Sunday I walked over and picked up my baking supplies, and came back to make some waffles, just enough for 2. Also Tracy had some squash blossoms she wanted to try deep frying, and did some turon from the freezer since the oil was hot. Then we walked down to Barnes & Noble to pick up some books, passing some other stores and getting some odds and ends, before grabbing some ground beef for burgers. So up on deck again, grilling burgers, before heading over to Market Days, which was crazy. Cleaned up a bit, but a pretty great summer weekend. Next year for sure having a party during Market Days though. Parking will be a pain, but can't beat the free entertainment.

Yes, I was jumping up and down watching some of the swimming finals of the Olympics last night. It's hard not to get involved in the races, well, maybe just when U.S. athletes are competing for the gold. Close races are definitely exciting. Although I wonder that other countries coverage would be like. I hung up the paintings in the bedroom. Tracy made chicken marsala and a garlic/onion soup amuse bouche. Tracy then started looking online for some art to put up on our walls. I had to plug the MacBook in via ethernet to get Time Machine to work, which is pretty annoying. Otherwise, not much else going on. Try and hang up the circuit candle holder tonight. Oh, I am back to commuting by bike. It's nice that it's cooler out. However the bike is making a not so nice grinding noise. Not sure what the deal is. I guess I'll have to do some maintenance this weekend, which actually should be pretty easy since I can just do it in our garage spot, since Tracy will be working.

Tried out the eReader app for the iPhone yesterday. It's pretty sweet. Even created an PDB version of some of the eBooks I have on my Sony Reader, and works like a charm when served up from my personal website. Pretty much means I can never be without something to read, even if the battery runs out on my reader, like last week, because I'll always have my iPhone on me and charged. Just need to go about converting my existing collection to that format. The bike grinding issue? Possibly related to the back wheel being a little loose. Any finagling doesn't seem to help, so I'll have to take the drive train apart this weekend to see what's up. Also redo my handlebar tape since that's unraveling. And maybe redo the brake cables too? And a good cleaning. I did pick up a stabilizer (kickstand) on the way home last night. Put it on this morning. Comes in handy since we don't have a bike rack at home. Put up the circuit candle holder in the study. Also got the Drobo yesterday. No disks for it yet though. But very slick unboxing. Reminded me of Apple, which is good. Can't wait to actually start using it. It's so much smaller, and hopefully much much quieter than the firewire enclosure. Disks should show up today. Neighbors were nice enough to sign for my package yesterday, and to usually let the UPS man in to leave packages in the front hallway. Watched some Olympics. Tracy whipped up some lime chicken and rice and salsa for dinner, using whatever was left in the fridge.

Chicago Air & Water Show is this weekend, and practice kind of started today. Bigger windows, more open views, and a higher floor means a closer look at the Blue Angels as they do some fly bys. Impressive. Hopefully we'll be able to see something from the deck this weekend. Got disks for the Drobo and some Candelas last night. Had some issues getting the Drobo connected because I was trying to do some firewire daisy chaining. It was smooth sailing when I didn't have the firewire enclosure plugged in. So I just switched the Drobo over to USB for the file copy part, and switch it over to firewire when I'm done. It's pretty awesome to have as much space as that giant box in a small quiet Drobo. Pretty awesome. Watched some Olympics. Tracy fried some won tons from the freezer for dinner, along with a salad. Broke down some cardboard boxes as well. Just have the ones in the garage left to do.

Got a Knape & Vogt Recycling Center yesterday. Doesn't quite fit in the corner cabinet, but I'm working on some modifications to get it rotating smoothly. Basically, it's just the plastic bins that stick out too far. So I just need to trim them down so that they do fit. But once I do get it right, it'll be pretty sweet. Trash, recycling, all in a corner cabinet that we weren't going to use anyway. I'm optimistic. Also got a new helmet, a replacement really, another Bell Metropolis. Always good to have a spare. Started discharging the Candela lights, as per the instruction manual. Have to go through a full discharge cycle once every 2 months, since they use old style NiCad batteries that have memory issues. But they are pretty sweet. Will definitely come in handy on the deck. Tracy had a craving for chili. Watched more Olympics. It's pretty hard not watching. She's working tomorrow, but not on Sunday, and having some friends over to possibly watch some planes. So if anyone's in town and not playing at a frisbee tourney, drop by, we'll be home. Still copying stuff to the Drobo. I think I should be done by the end of the weekend. It's been rock solid so far. I'm impressed. Right around 600 GB used, last I checked. Should be interesting to see what the final tally comes out to, and how much of that is either duplicate or temporary data (like EyeTV files that haven't been edited or converted yet.

Whoops, forgot to update yesterday. Friday night had grilled pork chops for dinner on the deck. Then headed out to Zentra to see Jesse and Missy spin. Saturday Tracy worked, so slept in, made the bins fit in the corner recycling center, watched some TV. Not much going on Saturday night, just a grocery run. Sunday, had JEspy over for the Chicago Air and Water Show, grilled ribs and tried to smoke a brisket. The in-laws came over for a little bit as well, after watching from Mike's place. Didn't work on my bike at all, so I'm taking public transportation until I get around to fixing it. I get to do some reading though, which is nice. Yesterday had to pick up rice from the old place for dinner of ground meat, beans, and squash. Good stuff. Watched more Olympics. I still haven't seen any table tennis, but I did get to see some trampoline, after Jesse told me about it. Oh, also tried jailbreaking my iPhone on Friday night, but failed, but didn't brick it, so I'm back to just jailed iPhone. I think the only reason I want to is to be able to play Gauntlet. That's pretty much the only reason I can think of.

Walked over to Grant Park to save a spot for Tracy to watch An Affair to Remember. Got a decent spot, dead center, around 6pm. Of course people wandered in, and some tall guy in a chair spots up in front and to the left of us. But we still have a decent view. Then maybe 10 minutes before the show starts, a group of women show up with chairs, and fit in to the chair space to our left, in a line, along with someone sitting in front of us, and also two squeezed in behind us, on a tiny piece of land. Next time, which means next summer, have to make sure to find a spot with no space behind a big group that doesn't plan on having chairs, and maybe a bigger blanket, big enough to lay down on, to have enough space. Took a cab home as I'm still taking the el to work so no bikes. Maybe I should look into getting the mtb up and running again, but if I wanted to do that right, it would mean it's own rack, and new wheels with an internal gear hub.

Watched Mad Men and Eureka over leftovers last night. Tracy had gone to her parents place after work, to possibly pick up some deck furniture and to not get caught up in Cubs night game traffic. Just means I was on my own for a little bit. After she got home we watched Misty May and Kerri Walsh win the gold medal. That was pretty cool. Beach volleyball is a pretty nice sport to get behind, besides the obvious reasons, it's short, well, at least when you watch the dominating team, and pretty exciting. And I'm still intrigued by handball, and I still haven't seen any table tennis on TV yet. I'm annoyed that my wireless network isn't fast enough that I have to plug in to do any time machine backups. Don't really want to have to double up, with an N only and a B/G for everything else. Would be nice if the iPhone nG does 802.11n networking since that's the only reason to have a b/g network right now. I'm also totally hooked on tangrams. There's a couple iPhone applications, and it's totally something to do when waiting for stuff. Couch is set to be delivered on Saturday. Add a Facebook application to my list of someday projects. Since they took away the Social Timeline, I'd love to whip up something where you keep track of teams you played on, tournaments you went to.

Not too much interesting going on. Tracy made a pot roast chicken last night. We watched the Bears lose, and some more Olympics. I looked a little bit more into developing an app for Facebook. But that's about it. Hopefully I can work on the bike at some point this weekend so I can get back on it next week. Riding the El is fine and easy, and the reading time is great, but I miss the exercise of commuting. More like my body misses the exercise. Supposed to head out tonight to pick up the ottoman from Arhaus, finally get our vacuum and maybe some other small personal appliances, maybe some DVDs, then dinner out somewhere. Oh, got a quote for the curtains for the one set in the living room, and of course it's a little pricey. Want to see if we can find some other places to get some quotes. Wonder how hard it'd be to do it ourselves. Or how much cheaper. Gonna try and hit up Green City Market tomorrow before the couch gets delivered, and Flavor Fest on Sunday at some point.

Friday night went to Arhaus to pick up the ottoman, then had dinner at Lalo's. Then went back to the old home to pick up some more stuff, but mostly to get the vacuum cleaner. We needed to vacuum the rug in the living room because we got the couch on Saturday. And I hung stuff up on Sunday night, so it really does look and feel like home. Except for the study/second bedroom. That's still only got a desk in it, which means all the stuff that needs to go in file cabinets or bookshelves is hanging out on the floor. Went to Green City Market Saturday morning, picked up croissants for french toast. Headed out to April's parents place for a party for her brother. Watched USA Hoops win a good medal. Sunday worked on my bike and got it back into working condition, then headed out to FlavorFest and came back with all sorts of free stuff. Tracy made lamb chops for dinner, and we watched The Ex. We're actually hoping to get a matching leaning bookshelf off craigslist, possibly today, because of how the couch/bistro table needs symmetry in the living room.

So, bought my first thing off craigslist yesterday. Absolutely amazed at how easy it was. Tracy found the listing on Sunday, emailed, left a phone number. I got the call yesterday, said we could take a look last night. Met up with Tracy, went to dinner at Exposure Tapas Restaurant, then went to the apartment building. Walked in, saw the bookshelf, said we'll take it, handed over the cash, walked out with a bookshelf. Just that easy. Amazing. No tax, no paperwork, nada. Just an exchange of money for goods. Simple. Pure. Oddly freeing. Anyway, biking over to the south Michigan Ave. was interesting after work, as I didn't take the best way to get there. And getting home was rough just because it was a nice constant headwind, and I took the lake front path, so no stop and go. Rough. Tiring. But the bookshelf looks good, even if the rear surround speakers aren't evenly spaced. Annoying. Headed out to the Duke tonight with Russell. And it's been a little chilly lately.

Only Wednesday. But at least it's a three day weekend coming up. Duke of Perth was good last night. 6:30 is just about the perfect time to get a spot outside. Food's still good, beer too. Russell came over to borrow some graphic novels. I guess I'm pretty used to the 4 flights of stairs, since it's pretty much nothing to me now. Been watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith on and off on the Apple TV. Thought I had a possible issue with my iPhone last night, got some sort of screen with a plug iphone into itunes graphic. Odd. Powered off for a bit, restarted the computer, and it worked after that. Also, I haven't had any luck getting Apps to install or update over the air, but I might blame that on our work wireless network. But still, I'm gonna leave that up to iTunes from here on out. And considering MobileMe, I might switch to syncing my iPhone with the Mac mini instead of the MacBook, which is definitely getting a little long in the teeth.

Keep forgetting I need to grease my bike, particularly the rear bevel gears. I forgot I wiped them down when I was tracking down the grinding noise, which, if I haven't mentioned, somewhat related to the shifter cable pinch nut attachment point on the cassette joint pulley arm getting bent. Or maybe just the hub in general. Either way, works ok. Leftovers for dinner last night. Watched Definitely, Maybe before it expired as an Apple TV Rental. Decided to head home to Woodstock sometime Saturday, and then come back in with my parents on Sunday, before the families BBQ on Monday. Also did some laundry. We can't hear when the laundry gets finished, so we need to remember to go and dry or get things out of the dryer. Also spent some time breaking down boxes in the garage from furniture deliveries for recycling pickup that was supposed to happen today. At least I hope it happened today, otherwise, all that cardboard got wet in the rain. Think I might vacuum tonight, cause the floors need it. Wonder if a Roomba would be a good idea? Or a different vacuum, like a stick or broom vacuum? Things to think about.

Three day weekend. Well, at least for me. Tracy's working Saturday and Sunday. Then we're having family over for a BBQ on Monday. Last night, did some vacuuming. Not too bad, but really need some sort of stick or broom vacuum for the stairs. Doesn't seem very safe to try and lug our current one down the steps to the front door or up the steps to the deck. Now just need to keep current with sweeping, and maybe won't have to vacuum as much. Tracy made some crab stuffed stuff, actually just some artichokes and a pepper, she also made some crab cakes. She put some cotija in the mix, which I couldn't actually tell at all. But pretty good. Fresh artichokes though? Not so much. Watched Eureka, Bears kind of play, and some of Obama's speech. Finally got Sky High transcoded, again. Folded some laundry. Greased up the bike's drivetrain before the commute in to work this morning. Also raised my seat an inch, which makes a huge difference. Still need to find some method of carrying my U-Lock. Got a haircut tomorrow. Then headed out to Woodstock on the train. Hang out with my parents. Come back in after some shopping on Sunday. Then prep for the BBQ.

Friday night watched Dan in Real Life, one of my new favorite movies of the year, even if it was from 2007. Watched that on the DVR over a beef stir fry Tracy made for dinner. Saturday she went to work, I got my haircut, then headed out to Woodstock to visit with my parents. Got to do some big box suburban shopping, where large quantities of things are much much cheaper than the city. Also got to hit up dinner at Bistro Wasabi, where I could have gotten my sushi fix, but didn't because I chose poorly on the menu. Should probably just stick to straight up sushi. Did get some Dairy Queen though. Did some computer updating, got my parents on MobileMe, even though they'll probably never know or notice. Was going to steal the old Airport Express but they still need it. So I either need to replace it with a true Airport Extreme Base Station, or just bit the bullet and get some new/old ones. I'm really getting tempted to set up a b/g only and an n only networks to better support the laptops and AirTunes. Sunday headed back in to the city, more shopping, some prep work for the BBQ on Monday, which Tracy did the most of. Monday BBQ, more grilling, another failed attempt at smoking a brisket, and family. Ended up watching a little bit of Sleepless in Seattle.

I've been using Google Chrome at work, and I'm a big fan. It's fast. Like really fast. And does everything that I was using Firefox for. So waiting on the Mac version, which would probably mean I'd switch from Safari. Weather's a whole lot cooler, and probably a whole lot wetter in the next couple of days. Should make biking a little interesting. Leftovers for dinner last night. Finished up watching Sleepless in Seattle while folding laundry. Currently ripping The Office, and finished up How I Met Your Mother, and then need to start transcoding. Hoping the Mac mini will hold up. I'm actually thinking it might be a bad stick of RAM. Don't want to take it apart to find out though. I am using it to sync my iPhone these days though. Which is good, since the MacBook seems to be on its last legs. Hoping to make 2 years with it. Made our first mortgage payment. Online of course. Auto pay. Like everything else.

Bike ride in this morning wasn't wet at all. I guess I caught a lull. And it was much faster than usual, not sure why, but it was nice. I'm guessing I'll get caught in more rain on the way home. But looking forward to it. This is why I commute with fenders and sandals, strictly for the rain. More leftovers for dinner last night, hamburgers this time. Tracy did some shopping at Target so she wouldn't get caught in Cubs traffic so I watched Mad Men before she got home. Then we watched season premiere of Bones. And while getting ready for bed we started Pretty Woman.

Soaked through and through on the ride home yesterday. But fun. Nice and quiet, since no one else was riding. But had both front and back lights blinking, had my nice yellow rain coat, so I assume I was pretty visible. I should probably look into some anti-fog stuff for my clear lenses in my sunglasses. Or maybe some water repellent stuff. Seems like a tough trade off, getting pelted in the eye with rain and have trouble seeing, or get glasses covered with water and have trouble seeing. Pick 'em I guess. Watched some football last night. Tracy made stew with our smoked brisket attempt. Also, the hard drive died in the MacBook. Good thing I had a spare hanging around. Bad thing it was only the hard drive. I was kind of hoping to get a new laptop out of the deal. But I do get to try my hand at restoring from a Time Machine backup. Should be fun this weekend. Decided not to ride in this morning. Felt like reading instead. Gonna go see Red Bull Flugtag Chicago tomorrow. Think there's a Restoration Hardware fall sale going on as well. CHC happens this weekend too.

Well, that whole karma balance thing I was talking about after getting our new place? Yup. In full force. So with all the rain from last Thursday, we had more leaking windows, although I think a few were not checked the last time they came and looked at leaking windows. They're checking it out today. Additionally, last night Tracy noticed some possible water damage to our ceiling above the dining room. Also not good. And possibly some leaking in the second bathroom, but we aren't sure on that. So when I tried to take a photo of ceiling, my camera wouldn't stop trying to auto focus, or something, but some motor wouldn't stop going, so any photos are blurry. But I was able to restore the MacBook from a Time Machine backup, which is good. The Bears won last night. Also good. I did make some pretty poor waffles on Sunday morning though. And my left pedal on the Sprint broke, so I had to replace them with the pedals off the old mtb. Did watch a lot of House on the USA HD marathon. Did some shopping, and wandering about. Really like Crisp, a Korean fried chicken place in Lakeview. So yeah, some bad catching up with all the good.

Well, the balance swings back. All that rain yesterday? No more leaking windows. I try out the camera? And it works. So I guess the world seeks to right itself. However, lost all my eWallet info, when I tried to do an update on my iPhone. Had leftovers for dinner. Watched some CBS, then Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I didn't really enjoy last night. Not sure if I want to keep watching that. But the new season is definitely starting up, and it'll be interesting to see if we can keep up with things. But, with the Apple announcements today, maybe I won't be as worried, since they have HD TV Shows available from the iTunes Store. Which is awesome. And NBC is back. Which is awesome. All good things. Otherwise, iPod updates. Nothing that interests me.

Lots of things to buy, or want to buy, but not anything that's really necessary. I was wondering what I could do with the old mtb, the Trek 7000 that's currently without pedals, and maybe I could turn it into a single speed, or get an internal hub for it, but otherwise turn it into a working spare bike, but then I had an epiphany, I could turn it into an Xtracycle. That would be awesome. Would need to get working components though. But it'd be sweet. Could buy lumber from Home Depot and schlep it home. Seriously. Besides that, I really want to get one of the TVs at home set up with 5.1 surround sound, and it looks like the Master Bedroom is gonna be first, but not sure if I want to use the old speakers and receiver, or try and go new with some wireless rear surrounds so I don't have to run wires across the room, and try and retrofit the old speakers, or just get a new system completely. And I still need to get an additional center speaker and receiver for the living room, not to mention the whole house audio amplifier + matrix. I think I'm throwing out the idea of any sort of home automation for now. Otherwise, we kind of need to pick up winter clothes from the old place, except that the temperature seems to be back on the upswing. Tracy prepped eggplant parmesan for dinner last night, but got some capsaicin on her fingers and then her face, so she had to deal with that, trying sour cream, milk, and vinegar. So I just did the heating part of the cooking. Watched some more House, some other stuff, nothing too memorable. I'm hoping the 2.1 iPhone update on Friday means I'll be able to do application updates, which I haven't been able to do, at all. I have to delete the app before installing it to get it to work. Which is annoying. Which is how I lost all my eWallet data. Ugh. Anyway, fingers crossed. Want to try out some iTunes Store HD TV Show downloads, see how it looks.

Got my U.S. Passport Card yesterday. Good for land or sea travel to North American countries, including the Caribbean. So, good to go to Canada or on a cruise to the Virgin Islands. But, the interesting thing? It comes with a foil lined sleeve that they tell you to store it in. Really? Why a foil lined sleeve? Oh, to prevent someone or something reading the RFID chip when it's not in use. That's awesome. I wonder when I'm actually going to use it. Put together Tracy's Smith & Hawken Classic Potting Bench last night. Cedar smells great, but it's really soft. Watched Bones. Crab legs for dinner. Thought about riding in today, but wimped out because it's supposed to rain. We're also supposed to pick up more stuff from the old place today, and that's another reason.

Went back to the old place last night to pick up more stuff. And I think it's been a while since we moved anything, cause my body had forgotten what it's like to take multiple trips up and down 4 flights of stairs carrying heavy objects. But at least we've got all our clothes now, the old speakers, the DVDs, the filing cabinet, oh, and the ironing board and iron. Sweet. Also means I should actually have a 5.1 setup in the bedroom by tomorrow at the latest. Of course, I couldn't find the small speaker stands, so I have to use the floor stands. I think I'll change the grills to blue though. I do wonder what happened to the original stands. Also tempting to use my Sony Points to get a compact speaker system, w/wireless rear surrounds. We'll see. Still didn't ride my bike today, another week without it, but I'll get back on the horse, so to speak, next week. Getting to be that time of the year to worry about cooler weather outfits for biking. Mountain Hardwear, I'm looking at you. Nothing planned for the weekend. Tracy's working. Want to make her a nice dinner on Saturday night, but not sure what's in store. Want to also take a peek under the hood of the Mac mini. And unpack some.

So 2.1 Software for the iPhone was released on Friday, which I installed, and decided to set up as a new phone, just like a nuke and pave. But for a phone. Which is good. I've had no problems installing applications, either via the phone itself or iTunes. Also nice to just start fresh. Tracy and I ate out the past three nights, mostly because I was lazy and didn't cook when I could have. Went to Rocks, Arco de Cuchilleros, and Crisp. Tracy worked, so lots of TV watching, Burn Notice almost exclusively. Also watch In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, which wasn't that bad. Lots of familiar faces in that one. Finally set up speakers in the bedroom, so got a place to watch movies. Will probably use my Sony Points to get a receiver for the living room, so we can properly watch movies there too. Also started transcoding How I Met Your Mother, and after that finishes up will do The Office. Not sure what's up next after that. Did some laundry. Pretty much stayed inside, and dry.

Watched Fringe pilot last night. Not bad. To me seemed like a cross between Alias and Eureka. Maybe some X-Files mixed in. I'd like to keep watching it. And I think next week or the week after Tracy and I have to decide which show to watch live, Chuck or Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, since we've got those two and How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory to watch in that time frame. I never did look into the Mac mini over the weekend, and had a couple random restarts yesterday. Annoying still. But we've got How I Met Your Mother, seasons 1 and 2 available for the Apple TV. Next up seasons 1, 2 and 3 of The Office. Of course, there's some HD TV Shows on the iTunes Store I'm tempted to pick up, like Heroes, and Lost Season 4. I think we're getting some art delivered, either today or tomorrow, but I can't tell from DHL. It's with a delivery courier but it still has an estimated delivery date of tomorrow. So whatever. I do think I'm on the hook for dinner tonight, so I'll try my hand at mechado.

Tracy ventured out to her parents last night, since the Cubs played (and won) at home. Which means I had leftovers for dinner and watched 21 and Burn Notice. Being back on the bike is good, but tiring. Hard to believe 8 days off the bike is long enough to lose something. We did receive the piece from Art.com for the living room, which I have to hang at some point. Started making a list of the other furniture we have to get to finish the place off, mostly for the study/second bedroom. Also means I need to get on with putting more shelves in closets and stuff.

Stopped by Sur La Table on my way home from work yesterday. It's totally on the way, which is totally a bad thing. Really too easy to just buy all sorts of kitchen and cooking stuff there. Seriously. I finally picked up a tamper for the espresso machine. And a couple of espresso cups. And some gifts. But definitely want to go back and pick up more stuff. Definitely. Frozen pizza for dinner. Watched House and Burn Notice. Packed. We're headed out to visit Lisa and Ryan with Jesse and Espy for the weekend. Leaving tonight. Gonna take the blue line from work, since there's a Cubs right now, and wouldn't want to try and deal with that traffic to get to O'Hare. Anyway, should be fun.

Back from Philly. Fun hanging out with Lisa and Ryan and Espy and Jesse. Good times. Got some cheesesteaks, saw the Liberty Bell, went to my first haunted house (Terror Behind the Walls), put some stuff on Pan, went canoeing, compare and contrasted street festivals in West Chester with Chicago, and tried to take photos on my iPhone every hour while awake. I didn't get around to uploading them all, but will try and get to it tonight. Lisa and Ryan have a great kitchen, it's pretty sweet. Even got to sleep a bunch. Lost horribly at Cranium. Never watched any sort of moving picture entertainment. Got to make pumpkin pie for the first time. That's some easy and good stuff. I need to make more pies. Just need to bake more in general.

Finally got the Frontgate Library Steps from a long time ago. There were supposedly delivered, but no one remembered there being a delivery, so I went through the UPS lost package process, but they couldn't find it, and supposedly the info went back to Frontgate, and then I got in touch with them, and then maybe a week later I get my steps. Sweet. Makes me wonder what happened to the original set of steps. It was a big box. But now we've got a nice looking step ladder/stool to use around the house. Back on the bike commute. Taking it nice and slow. Stopped by old home and picked up a couple more things, just odds and ends. Tracy made a pasta dish for dinner. I watched an episode of Burn Notice before hanging a painting in the living room. We settled in with the Blue Harvest episodes of Family Guy. I also got some photos together and cleaned up my Flickr account a little, and I'll try and post the Hourly Philly set tonight. Also my Sony digital camera has been acting up lately, so that probably needs a replacement at some point. Or we could just start using Tracy's old one instead.

So we tried to sit down and watch the season premiere of The Big Bang Theory, and it's got an audio issue. We had this happen to use before with some other show last year, Notes from the Underbelly, where the laugh track and background is bright and clear and the actual talking on screen is low volume. It's annoying. I wondered if it was Comcast, but it's actually WBBM, the CBS affiliate here in Chicago. They rolled out something new, just in time for the season and series premieres, which are causing audio issues. That's just brilliant. Means I might have to find alternative methods of watching those shows. Not only that, but for the 2nd week, the recording of Bones ended like a minute early. Annoying. Tempting to just go all purchased and skip broadcast and cable television. Anyway, uploaded pics from Philly to my flickr account. I like flickr. Tracy made pork chops for dinner, and some stuffed tomatoes. I'm headed out to Kuma's tonight with Russell for dinner.

Besides Russell got to see Bryan and Akira at Kuma's last night, because Kuma's was surprisingly empty. I rolled up maybe around 5:40pm and there were maybe 2 tables taken, and 8 people at the bar. Apparently Wednesdays are hit and miss for them. It was full by the time we left at 7pm though. File that piece of knowledge away. Riding up Milwaukee to Elston right around 5pm was interesting. Lots of bikers. And it seems like a whole different type, compared to my usual route up Wells. Just funny to observe, and I'll take my yuppish commute, thank you very much. Made it home in time to watch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and a couple episodes of Entourage. Still got lots to watch on the DVR. Don't want to get too behind. Oh, also got a new toaster. It's enormous and solid. Makes the coffee/espresso maker look small.

Watched some TV last night. Tracy made dinner. I tried out TrailGuru on the iPhone on the ride in this morning, and it was spot on. I'll use it again on the way home but make the route public this time. It's impressive. I do like InstaMapper, but I don't start it up often enough. If it would do it automatically every hour or so, that'd be awesome. Another thing I love about the iPhone: geolocation info in the EXIF tags on the photos. flickr maps them automatically. Love that too. Headed out to dinner with the in-laws and Mike tonight. Tracy's working the weekend. I've got a haircut tomorrow. Want to do some baking this weekend, probably some cleaning.

Friday night went to dinner at RoseAngelis for Mike (brother-in-law) and Amy's engagement dinner. It was kind of a surprise. Didn't work out quite exactly how he wanted it, but still, pretty impressive work. Ate and drank too much, fell asleep on the couch when we got home, stumbled to bed later, and didn't really recover until mid-afternoon on Saturday. Tracy worked, so I was on my own during the weekend days. Got a haircut. Went grocery shopping. Waited for a delivery from FedEx (center and subwoofer speakers for living room). Got some chicken patties to eat. Good stuff. Watched Mad Men, and some other random stuff, napped on the floor. Good times. Tracy and I headed down to the Palmer House for Susmita's 30th surprise birthday party. So hung out with pharmacy people all night. Sunday watched some Degrassi: The Next Generation, Doomsaday, and eventually Heroes and The Office. Did some cleaning. Leftovers for dinner. Oh, started watching old How I Met Your Mother too, that's such a good show. First 2 episodes, lots of laughing out loud. Impressive. Starting to transcode Kitchen Confidential to iPhone friendly versions. Also, completely forgot to nab the Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place DVDs from Lisa and Ryan when we were there last week. Also finally ordered up a Receiver for the living room using my Sony Points. Yay. Oh, and rigged a mount for the center speaker on the TV mount in the living room. Should be sweet when it finally gets something to power the speakers.

Yeah, I think I might have, and have had, plantar fasciitis, for maybe 4 years now. Awesome. I'll actually start doing something about it though, doing the exercises, finding a tennis ball to roll around on, and so on. Wonder how long it'll take for it to get any better? If ever? I mean, that's a long time for a lot of scar tissue to build up. I wonder what it actually looks like? Anyway, I finally decided to look it up today when I stumbled around after getting out of bed for the upteenth day in a row. Besides that, Tracy made a squash soup with cinnamon chicken fingers for dinner last night. We watched the Bears game from Sunday, and a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother. I ended up watching the end of the Ravens/Steelers game, and then dishes, so didn't get to bed till late. Also, the Mac mini is acting up again, not able to do multiple transcodes. Not sure what I did before that allowed it to whip through the entire 3rd season of The Office without getting frozen or restarting. Will be dropping by the old place tonight to pick up some random things. Getting nice and cool out, which I like for biking. But I do probably need to invest in a nice windproof skullcap.

Picked up more stuff from the old home yesterday. We get lots of junk mail there still. Moving stuff by bike would definitely be easier if I had an Xtracycle, which I saw for the first time on a commuter the other day. Awesome. Anyway, packed up a couple bags, put 'em in the baskets, and rode my way over to the new place nice and slowly, since I was packing a jewelry tree and some bottles of liquor. Getting cold out, definitely cold enough that I'm wearing a hat while biking. Oh, also picked up a keychain garage door opener. It's awesome. No longer have to dig through my bag for the garage door opener. Just have to reach into my pocket. Been having some issues transcoding Kitchen Confidential, so maybe it wasn't the Mac mini. Disc 2 especially, but Disc 1 went fine using the MacBook instead. Watched Desperate Housewives, Bones, and more old How I Met Your Mother.

Didn't get EyeTV and the HDHomeRun set up in time, and missed the first 5 minutes or so of Pushing Daises. That's the show that got pushed off the DVR because The New Adventures of Old Christine and Bones were recording. Annoying. Hopefully I'll be able to record the rest of the shows, but then again, when would we have time to watch them all? Also didn't record Chuck from Monday, since it conflicted with How I Met Your Mother and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Good thing about Chuck is that it's replaying on Saturday night. Never got around to watching Privileged, so that got shoved off the DVR scheduled recordings. I did finally finish transcoding Kitchen Confidential though. The issue with Disc 2 was I think on one of the extras, so I wasn't worried about it. I do have lots of TV Shows I need to edit metadata on, episode titles, numbers, and so on. Just kind of putting that stuff off. Tracy made stuffed peppers for dinner, eaten while watching Grey's Anatomy. Mike and Amy stopped by after the game, to use the bathroom, and ask some questions. Headed out to a steak dinner with the boys tonight.

Meat is good. Got home from work yesterday, got the Flavour Shaker from an old Amazon order from a while back as a gift for Tracy. She really likes the Jamie at Home show, and wanted one, so order up, and a while later it finally does. Haven't used it yet though. Watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which actually was pretty good I thought, the one mostly about Cameron/Alison. Maybe I liked it because it was similar to Firefly? That's a possibility. Anyway, took the train down to dinner at the Chicago Chop House. Good times. Made it back home on the bus. Have to say I'm not a fan of the Red Line. Thought I had some problems with the Drobo, but a reboot fixed whatever problems it had. Maybe all the Mac mini crashes had something to do with it. Also had some issues with Tracy's laptop not connecting to the network properly. I think I might have too many Airport Expresses extending the wireless network, as her laptop was connected to 2 of them at the same time. Odd because my MacBook right next to it had absolutely no problem on the wireless network. Headed out to Woodstock tomorrow and Sunday.

Friday night had some leftovers for dinner, and some mac & cheese and kielbasa. Can't remember if we watched anything of note. I spent some time trying to get the scanner to work again, and finally did, this time using Image Capture.app instead of any Canon application. Works pretty well for me. Drove out to Woodstock on Saturday, Tracy got up early enough to hit Green City Market with April. Went looking for pumpkin donuts from Dunkin Donuts, but the 2 we tried were all sold out already. Got home around 1pm for the Abando Home Gathering. Went out and picked up Bryan and Joe Little from the train station around 2pm. Then started eating. The rest of the group wandered in over the next couple of hours. Went and picked up Akira at the train station at 5pm, then came back and played some touch football. I'm still sore from it. Then a campfire, with an excess of gasoline starter, s'mores, then more eating, some football watching. A very good afternoon/evening. Sunday went to mass and went out to breakfast/lunch with my parents at Burnt Toast, a pretty good breakfast only place in Elgin. Then Tracy and I wandered through local roads back into the city, ending up at the Goebbert's Farm & Garden Center Pumpkin Farm, which had no entrance fee, and was pretty well set up. Got some cider, some apples, some donuts, some gourds, and of course, a giant pumpkin. Also had to go to Oakbrook Center since we had a coupon at Restoration Hardware, and picked up some curtain rods for some doors. Picked up rocks from Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn. Leftovers for dinner, and watched Entourage.

Missed a FedEx delivery yesterday morning. Annoying because of the signature requirement. Annoying because at the old place I'd never have to worry about it with a receiving room. Ugh. Hopefully I'll either get home in time, or maybe postpone it until Thursday when Tracy has the day off. Either way, a lot more annoying than usual. I wonder if I should just send stuff back to the old place. Anyway, more leftovers for dinner, ribs this time. Watched Bones and How I Met Your Mother. Started transcoding My Boys. I've pretty much turned the MacBook into a transcoding station. At least I know it's rock solid, and won't go randomly rebooting on me. I definitely have to do some troubleshooting on the Mac mini. Seriously. It's probably just bad RAM, but it'd be nice to know for sure. Finally getting bar stools for the kitchen bar. About time. Also need to find a way to get bookshelves from World Market, since they charge an arm and a leg for online order and delivery. Ugh. Wonder if I had an Xtracycle, would I be able to haul it home?

A neighbor must have signed for the FedEx delivery yesterday, because I had a nice new Sony STR-DG820 Home Theater A/V Receiver (7.1 Channel) sitting in the vestibule for me. Thanks, whoever you were. Got soaked on the way home last night, but it wasn't that bad. Just wet. Sandals were still wet this morning when I rode in. Watched Private Practice with leftovers for dinner. Need to get a couple things from the old home, like an extra power strip, a optical digital cable, the old RAM from the Mac mini. Oh, the new receiver looks pretty cool, and comes with a microphone to do auto-calibration. You're supposed to put it on a tripod in the listening position, and it handles all the levels and settings automatically. So have to bring back the tripod too. Also getting an additional Apple TV for the living room, and have to stop by Bryan's to pick it up.

Rode up to Bryan's after work, picked up an Apple TV, then rode home. It was good, a nice hour of riding, although heading down Addison isn't one of my favorite routes. Speaking of Addison, Private Practice didn't record last night, even though the night before I had it scheduled properly. I really don't like the Comcast DVR software and guide data, and how it resets all the time, and shows keep showing up as new and therefore recording, when they aren't new at all, but the guide data is wrong, or doesn't have the correct information. Not to mention that Showtime HD doesn't show up in the HD Channels listing. Annoying. It really is tempting to lose the cable stuff. I wonder if I could talk Tracy into it, especially with both TVs hooked up to Apple TVs. Then we'd get shows, no commercials, a la carte, from iTunes Store, or ripped from DVDs. It'd be great. Much like Frosted Flakes.

Scrambling at work all day. Last night dropped by old home and picked up more stuff. Wonder if I can bring more stuff over in a cart of some kind this weekend. I'm tempted to make a walking trip down to Home Depot to get some closet stuff. Or maybe try and strap stuff to my bike. Of course, I'd need rope or some sort of strapping system. Tracy grilled last night for dinner, some meat and assorted veggies. Watched Food Detectives, The Office and The New Adventures of Old Christine. Started ripping for transcoding Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Also transcoded some odd and end movies, like Navy SEALs and Antitrust. Oh, and need to fix the cabling on the living room TV because the jacks seem loose or something. I got some L-RCA (phono) connectors, and hopefully that'll solve the problem, otherwise, I'll have to get some more extension cables, and maybe that'll fix it. I think it's because of moving the TV on the mount back and forth and up against the wall and stuff. Hopefully nothing too serious. Tracy's working the weekend, so should be pretty laid back, and I don't have a haircut tomorrow.

Friday night went out to dinner at HB Home Bistro. Got wine at Kafka's beforehand, since it's BYOB. Next time, don't get a full bottle, since we had to finish it. Ended up being an early night for me. Saturday lounged about, watched Mad Men, set up the receiver in the living room (auto calibration rocks), the Apple TV, and the remotes. Rented Speed Racer and The Forbidden Kingdom. Went grocery shopping, twice. Actually made dinner, handmade squash ravioli and some garlic thyme chicken. Making pasta without a pasta roller is hard, making it with a beer bottle because we hadn't moved the rolling pins is even harder. But doable. Sunday had Frosted Flakes for breakfast, saw Jess pass by doing the Chicago Marathon, made it to mass for the last half hour, since I had schedules mixed up, and had spamsilog (a little classed up with caramelized shallots) for lunch and tried watching The Forbidden Kingdom, which had some encoding issues (center channel wasn't showing up), so watched Speed Racer instead, which is one of my new favorites. It's awesome. I did get a refund for the Forbidden Kingdom, but hope they get it fixed. Still want to see it. Did some laundry, vacuumed. Thought about putting up curtain rods. Leftovers for dinner. Finally got around to making a pumpkin loaf. It's not bad. Probably should make some more.

With the weather getting cooler, I tried out using a sweater vest for biking. And wow, it keeps me warm. Impressively warm. And I look pretty snazzy wearing it. Also, I raised my seat a bit more, and it's like night and day. Legs aren't as sore any more, and I seem to get more power. I'm cruising in 6th and occasionally get up to 7th. I'm impressed. Either I'm getting in shape, or I'm closer to getting my bike dialed in. However, some creaking has popped up again. Have to see what's up with that. Monday night tried making a Zuni Cafe style roast chicken. I even used a hair dryer but my skin wasn't crispy. Annoying. Chicken was good though. Ended up shredding it and Tracy used it in a tetrazzini concoction. Watched TV with dinner. Last night it was an episode of Private Practice that the DVR missed and I bought in HD off the iTunes Store. Quality was amazing. And the lack of commercials? Awesome. Tonight watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Big Bang Theory, and Samantha Who?.

So what's happened in the last 16 hours? Sleep. Work. Read along and sort of kept a running diary of the Apple Event from yesterday, The Spotlight Turns to Notebooks (October 14, 2008). Lots of griping by intarweb forums that Apple didn't give them what they wanted. My take? Boo hoo. Will I be getting one? A new MacBook? Eh, I'm currently running one from Mid 2006. I should be in the market for one, but you know what? Don't really need it. My iPhone handles most of my portable computing needs, and I don't do any traveling, or anything that might require having a true portable computer. I thought a MacBook Air might be my next machine, but it still has a button on the trackpad, so I'll just wait until they update that to buttonless. Funny, people wanting Apple to add buttons, and Apple goes ahead and removes buttons. Forgot to mention we made chicken stock last night. Hopefully it's good. Oh, belated congrats to Machine and Nemesis on qualifying for Nationals.

Thanks to Brady, I discovered FriendFeed. And because of FriendFeed, I'm rediscovering all my various accounts in all my online social networks and stuff. It means I'll try and post photos to Flickr more often. My Facebook status will reflect my actual status, when I want to share it. And I'll start Twittering again, and this time limit it to thoughts, comments, and observations, much like mini Musings. Oh, and start keeping track of websites and articles I'm reading via del.icio.us. Rode home in the chilly rain last night. Good timing, since Tracy made chicken noodle soup for dinner. I whipped up another Pumpkin Loaf, and have kept the recipe since I like this one. Just need to figure out how to add crumbles on top. I think I'm making pumpkin pie tonight, and maybe espasol too. Watched Grey's Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother. I listed out a bunch of shows I want to get from the iTunes Store. Oh, and programmed the old cable remote to handle audio through the receiver in the living room.

Stopped by the old home on the way home last night, picked up mail. Probably have to do that more frequently as the holiday season approaches, with catalogs and stuff. After dinner of leftovers and watching Kath & Kim, did some grocery shopping, stocking up on baking supplies. Keep forgetting that I don't have a rolling pin. Made a couple pumpkin pies and some espasol. Hopefully the pies turn out okay. They didn't seem all that solid when they cam out of the oven, but a knife came out clean, so I figured they were done. Finally got some barstools, they got delivered today on Tracy's day off. Maybe some more home decorating shopping this weekend. Otherwise, nothing too exciting.

Argaos totally pulled off a surprise birthday party for my mother-in-law on Friday night. Completely unexpected on her part. Impressive work. Also, niece Ella was in town, along with her parents, so got to see them as well. Took the Metra out on Friday night, and stayed out there. Saturday did some shopping, borrowing the in-laws RAV4 to get some 7' tall bookshelves from World Market. Also got some more odds and ends, vases mostly, for decoration. Also had lunch and shopped at the IKEA in Bolingbrook. I do like that store, wandering through all the displays and setups. I like all the mockups. And they even hack themselves, which is pretty cool. Really like the soft close hardware for cabinets, and might look into retrofitting ours. Would be nice. Also would be nice to have frameless cabinets, instead of face frame. Oh well. Maybe if we ever redo the kitchen. But the 2nd bedroom is finally in pretty good condition, with bookshelves. Just need something to hide the printer and cable modem and Airport Extreme and associated wires. The one we were interested in is no longer available for sale. Whoops. Sunday the in-laws came over, and Tracy and I cleaned up all morning before they got there. Got rid of a bunch of boxes, too. Had lunch over at Nookies Tree. After they left we went to Home Depot, got another pot, and finally some additional shelves for a couple closets. Watched the Bears game, which was great, because we hadn't heard anything about the game yet. Also watched Saturday Night Live, which wasn't that good. Rode in to work this morning, which was good since I was sore from going up and down the stairs this weekend. Bad because it's raining, and I have to go home through it.

Didn't have to ride home in the rain at all yesterday, it was nice enough to stop before my commute. That was pleasant. Stopped off at Home Depot to get one more shelf for the closets, which I'll hopefully get around to installing today. And hopefully it'll be an easy process. Last night got around to putting up the drapery rods from Restoration Hardware that we got on sale a couple weeks back. Now we just need the window, or in this case, door treatments. And it was pretty easy. Shouldn't be that hard to do the rest of them, if we want to. Had some langonisa for dinner, watched a bit of Smallville, Eli Stone, and Samantha Who?. I've been looking for an iPhone wallpaper. I had been using the stock Earth wallpaper, but tried out my Arashikage Clan symbol, but wanted something different. Maybe an Obama '08 image? Or something fall-like? I do have some Kaze Pandas that I've used before. In the end, I went with some Star Wars Election propaganda. Tina Fey wore the Princess Leia t-shirt on SNL earlier this season, and well, it makes a pretty good wallpaper. So that should tide me over for another couple of weeks. Not sure what I'm gonna go with after that though.

So the wire shelves I cut for the closets don't quite fit. I need to trim them, just the edges. Annoying. I'm using my Dremel and cutting wheels, which works ok, but takes a while, and I really should get some ear plugs for safety's sake. I'll go out and look for some new cutting wheels today, that hopefully would last longer. But a couple more days and I should have the closets done. Tracy made chili for dinner. Good stuff since she used some previously grilled chuck for it. Added a nice smoky flavor. Watched 2 episodes of Heroes, and How I Met Your Mother. And it was freezing last night, and we're finally gonna start using the thermostat. Also realized I don't own sweatpants. Seriously. I need something to wear when it's freezing out. Turned off the faucet on the roof, so that should be all good.

So going back to Wednesday night, I finished trimming the shelves for the closet. Picked up some reinforced cutting wheels from an Ace Hardware near the Sears Tower, which made short work out of the rest of them. I managed to extend the top shelf, but didn't do the rest since the work was really loud. Tracy made some roast chicken for dinner. Watched House. Thursday ordered up Tracy's birthday present, a full month in advance. There was also a wicked headwind on the way in to work. Pretty annoying. Finished putting the shelves up in the hall closet, and it's much nicer to look in, and easier to store things, like bags, umbrellas, and stuff. Nice. Next up are a couple shelves in one of the 2nd bedroom closets. Tracy went with crabcakes last night. Watched Grey's Anatomy and The New Adventures of Old Christine. Just signed Tracy and I up for the Trick or Treat Trot on Sunday. Maybe I should go running before then, like tonight? Also, Tracy's gonna try and set us up with some costumes. I just need to catch up on Mad Men on Saturday, and maybe lunch or a movie with Russell.

Friday night got carryout from Cozy's Noodles for dinner. Tracy had to do some shopping for costumes for the Trick or Treat Trot. Watched Mad Men. Saturday Tracy worked, so after watching The Unit and cutting some fabric for Tracy's costume, got a haircut then headed up to Evanston for lunch with Russell at The Celtic Knot. Then headed over to watch Body of Lies, before heading back down to pick up packets for the Trick or Treat Trot, get a new pair of shoes, water Mike's plants, and pick up dinner from Crisp. Watched Superbad on demand, finally. Pretty good. Sunday dressed up as a ghostbuster and Tracy donned her Slimer costume, and we walked up to Montrose Harbor, and ran the 5K. We stuck around for the costume contest, and didn't even make the cheer off, but there were only like 8 people in the contest anyway, and about that many people still there. So that was pretty stupid. Lounged about on the couch afterwards. Watched Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium before heading over to Tony's for turkey. He, of course, had an awesome looking space. Watched some Entourage when we got home, and bedtime. Still sore from the running. That would be the first time running since Muddy Buddy. Awesome. And another 5K for this coming Sunday.

Another day, another missed update. Monday night Tracy made pork, squash, beans over rice. Watched The Office and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Last night watched The Unit, House, and Mad Men. Tracy made jerk chicken and coconut rice. She also picked me up from work, since she voted early out in Homer Glen. So that was nice. So actually, not a whole lot going on. Headed out to dinner tonight with the Walls, since Chris is in town. Haven't been biking to work. It's cold, and I was sore from the run on Sunday, and I don't have a whole lot of cold weather gear anymore. I'll probably pick it back up after the run on Sunday.

Wow, missed 2 updates this week. Odd. Wednesday night walked up to Erie Cafe for dinner with the Walls, and it was good to see them. Thursday night stopped by Best Buy on the way home. Tracy's early birthday present was a Wii, which I thought I had gotten a deal online, but that was totally not the case, since there was a stack of them at MRSP. Ugh. At least I got all the accessories, and I'll set it up this weekend. Give us some physical activity to do together, besides random races. Also finally picked up some Cachaça. And a six-pack of Xingu which rang up at $1.99. Awesome. Tracy made a shepherd's pie type dish but with ground turkey and squash. Watched Eli Stone and 30 Rock. Only got the Hot Chocolate 5K on Sunday. Otherwise, just planning on some house improvement stuff, hanging shelves, installing pull out drawers for cabinets, lid holders, maybe moving the server/cable modem and stuff to the master bedroom closet and open up the 2nd bedroom. Not sure though.

Let's see, Friday night had leftovers for dinner, wandered through the Northalsted Halloween Parade, didn't push our way to the front to get good seats at Cornelia, but was nice wandering around. Did eventually see someone in a good Ghostbusters costume, with a light up backpack and trap and everything. I was jealous. Otherwise, no other costumes really caught my eye, at least that I can remember. Saturday made waffles for breakfast, then biked around some, down to Green City Market, over to Wicker Park to pick up race packets, then over to Erehwon to check out base layers with Russell, and finally a quick stop over at Smith & Hawken. Tracy made a pot roast for dinner, after getting inspired by Paula Dean on TV. Watched a couple episodes of Grey's Anatomy, National Treasure: Book of Secrets via Video On Demand. Sunday wandered up to the Hot Chocolate 5K about 15 minutes late. Ran the course anyway, and ended up beating some walkers. Had some s'mores and hot chocolate. Came back home, had some ham for lunch, wanted to install closet shelves in the 2nd bedroom, had to pick up some wall clips from Home Depot, got those installed, and some additional organizational stuff too, and put up shelves on the wall as well. Also managed to get meta info for How I Met Your Mother Season 1 and 2 set up for iTunes. Watched the Bears game after going out to dinner at Deleece grill pub. So a pretty productive weekend.

Got my vote on this morning. Only took me 1 hour and 50 minutes. Showed up at 7am at my old place, and read Bringing Down the House while waiting. But I voted. Even used the only touch screen electronic ballot the polling place had. It was sweet. Very easy and straightforward. Here's hoping to them rolling it out next year, or at least for the next Presidential election. Curious as to what the trip home will be like, since there's that giant Obama rally in Grant Park right now. Should be interesting. Might also go to a neighbor's election party, you know, so we can actually meet our neighbors. Last night tried to setup the IR Repeater using the RG6 cable for audio that was already run through the wall in the living room, but that didn't work, so I just put it back up on the left speaker. Finally set up Tracy's early birthday present, the Wii and tried it out. It's amazing. Simple, but very interactive. Like it's from the future. Also Wii Fit, since that was an additional part of the gift. Hopefully we can actually use it. I lost to her in Wii Sports:Tennis.

So Barack Obama is the President-elect. How about that. Had no issues getting home last night. Not overly busy, not crazy at all. Passed a polling place on the way home and it was pretty empty. No lines. Watched some coverage, kept it on CNN hoping for the holograms and more touch screen action. Hoping someone would make Michigan bounce, but no luck. Used the NY Times on the iPhone for election coverage. Played some Wii Fit. Definitely want to try and keep that up. Had frozen pizza for dinner. Wandered downstairs to the neighbors for their election party cut short, since they nabbed tickets to the Obama rally in Grant Park. Watched the SNL Bash from Monday night, and watched more election coverage catching McCain's concession speech (classy) and Obama's victory speech (I actually thought it was repetitive, but inspiring all the same). I was glad he wasn't smiling. It's like he knows what's in store. All the work we have to do. This is just a foot in the door. At least I hope.

So I've been reading conservative and right wing blogs, because I want to see what the other side is saying about having a new President, and thoughts on the election. And it confuses me. But it is interesting stuff, I'll give them that. Sounds very much like they want to go to the mattresses, dig the trenches, and get ready for a prolonged war with the liberals now in charge of Washington. Had some issues with my Sony Reader, in that it's not showing up properly in the eBook Library software. I might have to do a reformat of the reader to get it to work. Oh well. Just wish they'd come out with a Mac client. Would be nice. Played more Wii Fit last night. Definitely feels like it's starting to help posture and balance. Tracy made a stir fry with leftovers, and we watched Bones. Still haven't been biking to work, plan on starting again next week, as riding the El and watching The Unit on my iPhone is a pretty good commute.

More Wii Fit last night. I probably should do some additional exercises, maybe bike riding when I get back on the horse, and maybe go back to some Urbanathlon training. But it's nice having a nice system to track weight gain and loss. Probably the biggest benefit? Balance. Mine is awful, which I guess isn't too surprising, but I wonder what it would have been like back when I was still an athlete playing Ultimate. Oh well. Tracy sewed a slip cover for the ottoman, aside from making hamburger mac for dinner last night. Ended up watching Private Practice with dinner. I did reformat my Sony Reader, and I can't believe how slow it is, or how thin it is when you take the cover off of it, and I no longer have any problems transferring books to it. I should clean up some additional texts I have, but it's starting to have a pretty good stable of novels so I wouldn't have to worry about not having something to read. As long as I keep it charged. Oh, and I got Toy Soldiers off the iTunes Store. The DVD is Pan & Scan, but the iTunes version is Widescreen, and that's enough for me to purchase. It was also only $9.99. Great movie. Probably end up watching that this weekend. And probably more of The Unit. And try and make some pumpkin cookies or pumpkin spice marshmallows.

Kind of a busy weekend. Friday night had leftovers and played a lot of Wii. It can be a pretty good workout, especially movements that you never use, like swinging a bat, or throwing a baseball, things I never ever do. Saturday watched a whole lot of The Unit. Wanted to do some vacuuming but our vacuum is broken. Ugh. I took it apart multiple times, and can find anything obviously wrong with it. It just doesn't turn on. Power flows through it, but no lights. Next weekend we'll have to get it out to a repair place. If I had an Xtracycle I could have biked it out, but can't really carry it around myself. Ended up making Lemon Chicken for dinner. Watched Smallville. Sunday ran some errands, watched more The Unit, finally cancelled my gym membership, ended up making ribs for dinner. Watched Desperate Housewives and Eli Stone. It was weird because we were done with dinner by 7pm. An early night for sure. I did get new brake pads for my bike, and maybe I'll get around to biking back in to work again. Also borrowed my parents vacuum cleaner, since our place really needed it. You kind of get strange looks from people when you walk down the street carrying a vacuum cleaner.

So another workday, and another bout with the Wii Fit. It's a good time, especially with some of the other exercises that have been unlocked. And I guess I should use it over the weekend. I try and put in 30 minutes or so, mostly aerobic, yoga, and a little balance, but no strength, except that I should do some core stuff. Really need to work on balance. Finally picked up winter coats from the old home, and now it's supposed to warm up a bit. Figures. Tracy made a Shepard's pie with the leftover mashed potatoes. Good stuff. Watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Samantha Who?.

Sore from working out or sore from a possible bout with the flu, I'm not so sure. Wait and see. So more Wii Fit last night. Works out well, since I do that while Tracy slaves away in the kitchen making dinner. She got some mushrooms from Treasure Island, which were a little different looking. Treasure Island has a mushroom display right now with some odd stuff, like a giant block of dirt with mushrooms growing out of it in spots, and some weird looking stuff. Watched Good Eats with dinner and then Heroesx2 and How I Met Your Mother. I'm starting to look into alternative means of getting eBooks onto my Sony Reader and also to the iPhone. Oh, and saw another Kindle in the wild, this time with a cover, with a guy waiting on the el platform at Washington and Wells for the Brown Line southbound. That's 2 now I've seen. 0 Sony Readers.

Again, nothing really exciting going on. Dinner, Wii Fit, TV watching. Work. Repeat. I did try installed BookDesigner via CrossOver, but that didn't work. I might move my Parallels Desktop install over to the Mac mini. I don't really use the MacBook for anything anymore. After I took one of the RAM sticks out of the mini, it's been rock solid. Not sure what to use it for. I do need to get a Firewire 400 to 800 cable, and maybe I can use my old firewire enclosure to do huge batches of DVD transcoding. Hmmm. Maybe I'll stop by the Michigan Avenue Apple Store and pick one up, along with a new set of ear buds, since I lost the ones I had, and the Apple ones that came with the iPhone don't fit in my ear, and I can't use the headphones with a hat. Hmmm. I also really need to get around to converting a bunch of eBooks to eReader format so I can carry them around on my iPhone. Only thing I might have to start doing is carrying a charger with me in case I need it. Tracy's headed out to Homer Glen tonight, so I'm on my own for dinner, hence, the possibility of stopping by an Apple Store.

What? I missed updating on Friday? Odd. Well, Thursday night walked up to the Apple Store, finally checked out the new MacBook (13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008), MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2008), and iPhone 3G. Eh to all of them. The only one that really blows me away is the MacBook Air (Late 2008). So thin. Of course, didn't get anything, since I'm looking for some iPhone friendly ear buds (with mic) and a 400-800 firewire cable, which I didn't find. Another time I should have just ordered online. More Wii Fit, and in 2 weeks of use, haven't made any progress whatsoever with it. Feel a little better though. Got Parallels Desktop moved over to the Mac mini. Friday night more Wii Fit I think, watched Grey's Anatomy with dinner. Saturday started watching How I Met Your Mother Season 1, made french toast for breakfast, picked up more stuff from the old home, went out to La Creperie for dinner. Sunday hash browns and corned beef hash for breakfast, more HIMYM, went shopping at Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora, early dinner at Red Lobster. Kind of started holiday shopping. Also started transcoding holiday movies, since it's getting close to the season. Otherwise added more metainfo to transcoded TV episodes. Hung up some additional mirrors around the house too. Oh, and it snowed last night, and we definitely got some accumulation on the roof. That's cool.

Not much going on. No big purchases. No shopping sprees. No new toys. Played more Wii Fit last night. First time getting perfect balance on the body test. I'm usually .3% off. Weight and BMI is up and down around my average, no real change. I've decided to hit up all the Strength and Yoga games at least 3 times each. It makes suggestions for sets, but doesn't make it easy to get to the different exercises that go well together. I usually start out with the Advanced Step, which I'm getting the hang of on timing for Perfects, then some Boxing, and then the exercises. It's still holding my interest, which is good. After that, made a pumpkin loaf and muffins. Tracy made dinner, pork chops and a salad, and roasted some squash for a soup tonight. Watched Desperate Housewives. Almost completely caught up with The Unit. Next up is Eureka for my commuting and lunch TV watching. After that, not sure. I should do metainfo for the Alias transcodes, as well as the Las Vegas (tv show) ones. I guess that's something to do.

More Wii Fit. Planks are hard. Didn't do any yoga last night, so I'll concentrate on that tonight. Thought I was all caught up on Season 4 of The Unit, but a new episode became available for download this morning. So I'll have to watch that. Tracy made soup for dinner last night. Watched The Big Bang Theory, which made me want to get a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings today for lunch, and The New Adventures of Old Christine. I just have this feeling they're going to pair off Penny and Sheldon. Somehow I see that happening. I also started rewatching Season 3 of Eureka. And I'm currently reading Rainbow Six on and off whenever I've got a few minutes waiting: I love having eReader on my iPhone.

Guess what I did last night? Yup, Wii Fit. Watched TV (Housex2, The Office). Had dinner that Tracy made (sinigang). Continued to have some issues transcoding Shoot 'Em Up. I finally got a version to go through Handbrake, but ended up with a m4v that had no sounds and played at twice the speed. Odd. I'm almost ready to try some Windows solutions. And maybe this is why I don't buy DVDs anymore. If there was an iTunes Store version for $10 I would have gotten that. But there isn't. Ugh. There was a new 2.3 update for the Apple TV released last night. 2 features I'm happy to see: video playlists (have to turn on in settings) and can send audio to other AirTunes. So now you can do whole house audio using the TV as the interface, and use the iPhone as a remote. If only they could add a visualizer. Then it'd be the perfect party music device. As it is, putting together TV shows on a playlist and letting it play is awesome. If that's how it works.

First off, Happy Birthday to my wife, Tracy. Also, another Happy Birthday to Jessica Jenkins, who shares a birthday with Tracy, which makes it easy to remember. We're headed out to Ruth's Chris Steak House for dinner, which was I think her best steakhouse experience so far. But that's it for celebrating since she has to work tomorrow. I think I might try and find some bone marrow to make for dinner tomorrow, since that's her favorite, and coincidentally came across a recipe for it today. Also got a haircut scheduled for tomorrow morning. Supposed to hang out with Jespy on Sunday, haven't seen them in a bit. Also still have to try and transcode Shoot 'Em Up. Finished up adding info for The Office Season 1, need to finish up Seasons 2 and 3. Then all 5 seasons of Alias. Yay. Also rented some movies on the Apple TVs to watch, Sex and the City, Get Smart, and The Incredible Hulk.

Wow, missed a Monday update. That's not so good. Anyway, weekend was good. Friday night really good dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. Good stuff there. Mushrooms weren't so good. They were just ok. Saturday watched some TV, as usual, got a haircut, vacuumed, made roasted bone marrow for dinner. Interesting. Won't make it again, at least for a complete meal, but might make a nice side dish for something. Sunday pretty lazy day, finally brought the vacuum clean out for service. Watched the Apple TV rental of Sex and the City finally. And that's pretty much it for the weekend. A new version of Handbrake was released yesterday, and that did the trick for transcoding Shoot 'Em Up. So that's awesome. Added more meta info to Las Vegas (tv show) and The Office. All caught up with Eureka. Started watching Toy Soldiers. Headed out to Kuma's Corner tonight. And I think I have way too many applications on my iPhone. I've got like 3 different location check in type apps.

It's a big thing. I saw an episode of The Big Bang Theory where it played a role. And I've finally started adding some high school and grade school classmates as well. Always interesting to see where people end up. But Tracy's tired of it already. And I wonder if or when it'll crater. No idea if it has lasting power or not. Or how it compares to MySpace. It might be approaching critical mass. Wait and see. Went to dinner with the Russells last night at Kuma's Corner. So good. Really really good. Came home, watched a couple episodes of Eli Stone, the newest episode of How I Met Your Mother, which is so good. It's like the Kuma's Corner of television. We think it's not as popular as, say, Friends, because it's on CBS. Seriously people, watch this show. Although, I wonder if I'm missing something about how it's not broad enough in its appeal. Hmmm, something to think about. Headed out to a party at April and Scott's tonight. Headed out to Woodstock via the Metra for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Met a new possible friend at April and Scott's party on Wednesday night, even though I was designated driver for the night. I do think I got to meet Billie for the first time. I think anyway. Yesterday took the long trip home to Woodstock via Metra. Good thing I got there early, since it was a short train, and I had no idea how busy it gets on Thanksgiving day. I got a seat though and watched a couple episodes of Las Vegas (tv show). Slightly smaller crowd at my parents place, but food was great as always, and my mom actually got to sit at the big table. Also snuck in a quick iChat with Al and Nicole. Kitchen iMac needs better speakers, but the little iSight stand I brought works well. Also started rummaging around the basement for old stuff. Always interesting to see the stuff that's collected from long ago. Due to a misunderstanding on my part, I took the last train into the city, instead of the second to last train, and didn't get picked up by Tracy (who had to work and then went to her parents place after) downtown, and instead up on the Irving Park station. Of course I brought plenty of food back. Thanks Mom! I finished transcoding the 3rd season of How I Met Your Mother, so that's sweet. My parents are coming in on Saturday for dinner at Think Cafe. Otherwise, need to pick up the vacuum cleaner that got fixed.

Yup, snow. It's here. And my shoes aren't waterproof, like I thought. I should get some. Had another Thanksgiving on Friday night, leftovers from home. Watched Private Practice with dinner. Saturday ran errands, met up with my parents for dinner at Think Cafe. Finished up the evening watching How I Met Your Mother in bed. It was a lazy sunday, since the weather wasn't so great. A little cleaning. We were those people though, and drove the 2 blocks to Jewel and Treasure Island. But we picked up a lot of supplies. Played some Wii Sports and Wii Fit, and Tracy's a whole lot better at most of the games than me. Especially tennis. Spaghetti for dinner. Oh, and finally put up one of the wall mounted bottle openers. Very handy. Also tried adding more meta info, this time to Las Vegas (tv show) Season 2, but MetaX crashed 2 episodes in. That's why I don't like doing complete TV seasons. Annoying. Just realized 2009 is right around the corner. And before you know it, it'll be 2010. Where's my flying car?

Want to tweak the wireless network at home a bit. Not sure how, but there's definitely some things to try. Maybe get the Apple TVs on an 802.11n network. Maybe. Also started thinking about cable management in the 2nd bedroom. Lots of photos oh Flickr on how to do that, but mostly it's about keeping cables off the floor and somehow hidden behind the desk, usually in some sort of trough. Not sure what to use for the trough. Might make a Home Depot run to try and stumble across something. Also, my parents brought out my scrapbook back on Saturday, so I pulled out some old yearbook photos. Those will be going up on Facebook at some point. It'll be part of an album to help define how I know my Facebook friends. So basically it'll be St. Mary School, Marian, and maybe a couple NU photos, and then team photos from Union Crew, Kaze and Scandal. In life, played some Wii Fit last night, watched Heroes with dinner, transcoded The Long Kiss Goodnight.

Flickr. Facebook. Twitter. Daily Dose. Delicious. Now maybe Tumblr. Not to mention the accounts that aren't updated, like MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Loopt, BrightKite, Last.fm or Pandora. And those are the ones I remember. I like Facebook for keeping track of people. I use Flickr for photos. I use Twitter for random thoughts, more like a mini-Musings for me. Daily Dose is still my online journal. Delicious for links. So what would Tumblr be for? The only additional things it might provide are quotes and chat logs, and maybe audio and video, which I don't post at all. So maybe I won't use Tumblr, too redundant. Also, the new Amazon Mobile app for the iPhone has this cool feature where you take a photo of something you want to buy, and sometime later you get a possible match on the store for that product. It uses Amazon Mechanical Turk to do it, which is to say, Amazon pays people to look at photos and pick products that match the photo. Crazy. Of course, I just signed up for Mechanical Turk. Anyway, life stuff: Wii Fit and Urbanathlon training last night. The training is awesome, and hopefully I can keep it up this time. It's just a great full body workout. Watched House and Bones. mac & cheese for dinner, anything else would have taken too long. Tempted by Crisp, but didn't want to venture outside. Might actually buy some Crocs. Yup. Really.

So I'm trying out Tumblr as a personal public FriendFeed. I like the idea, but it seems to choke on feeds occasionally. Makes me wonder how hard it might be to roll my own? Dropped by the old home yesterday, picked up mail and stuff, and a black PowerMate that I got off eBay. Paid through the nose, but they only made the black one for a year maybe. And I never pulled the trigger, and should have. Anyway, I use the black one at work, so it blends in a little. Wish it had a black USB cord as well. Otherwise, the parents Christmas presents arrived as well, so when we have dinner with them in a couple weeks I'll bring that out to them. Played some more Wii Fit, Tracy made mechado for dinner, and we watched Smallville and Samantha Who?. I've started thinking some more about organization in the second bedroom, consolidating cables, reorganizing cable modem, router, access points. That's my big project for the weekend.

I picked the wrong day to wear a base layer. That would be yesterday. I thought it was cold then, boy, was I wrong. I decided to forgo them today, because I was too warm in the office. Whoops. I got stuck on the Addison Red Line stop, waiting for a southbound with enough space to get on. That didn't happen until 30 minutes and 4 trains later. And I saw a relatively empty train pull away when I was about a block away. Awesome. Totally awesome. Anyway, hoping the ride home is much quicker. As for the usual, played Wii Fit for a bit, did more Urbanathlon training, maybe this weekend I can actually do the recommended number of sets. Tracy tried out a brine for a turkey thigh, which was pretty good. Watched Eli Stone and Grey's Anatomy. Supposed to go to Mike and Amy's engagement party tonight. As for the weekend, household chores, since Tracy's working, and the cleaning out of the second bedroom. Otherwise, trying to keep warm.

Tracy ended up taking a half day or so on Friday and calling in sick on Saturday, so I had to try and take care of her a bit. We did go to Mike and Amy's engagement party on Friday night. A fairly early night, but Tracy wasn't any better on Saturday, so she called in, slept some more. I made grits and bacon for breakfast, and we spent the day on the couch. I did do laundry, and took a nap. I ended up having to make a quick run into the office to check on a server, and picked up Crisp for dinner on the way back. Also made a grocery run to get Tracy some tea. Sunday she went in to work, and I tried out the stove top griddle for the first time, and I love it. Also caught up on The Unit. Vacuumed. And finally got around to doing cable organization for the desk in the second bedroom. Only have to figure out where to put the printer. Did watch a little bit of No Country for Old Men and Tracy, like everyone else, was disappointed in the ending. Wonderful piece of storytelling. Like a Neal Stephenson novel. Oh, and currently transcoding all the James Bond movies, which I got in some Gold Box deal from Amazon.

Dropped by the old home yesterday on the way home to pick up more papers and gifts for the parents. Did the body test on the Wii Fit, did some Urbanathlon training, had meatloaf for dinner, watched Desperate Housewives, Private Practice and 30 Rock. Checked on the MacBook churning away on the James Bond transcodes. I think I want to do Veronica Mars next, and maybe some random movies on the Mac mini. Oh, the 802.11n network is holding up just fine, and streaming to the Apple TVs is much better. Much faster. It's nice. And coverage is just fine with the single Airport Extreme Base Station. Same thing with the 802.11b/g network via the Airport Express. I've been looking for an iPhone app to test WiFi strength as I walk around, so I can see if I can control iTunes music from the roof. But no such luck yet. Maybe a reason to actually code something?

The clear lenses on my sunglasses have come in handy from time to time, and not just with biking. For example yesterday, as the rain turned to snow, and was driving a little, the glasses saved my eyes a bit. I've also gone back to using eyedrops, as the eyes have been a little dry lately. Never hurts. Last night played a little Wii Fit (not losing any weight whatsoever). Watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and The Big Bang Theory. The James Bond transcodes are almost finished, and I decided to start transcoding the Pixar movies I have. Also decided to try putting meta info back on the Las Vegas (tv show) Season 2 episodes again, and hope MetaX doesn't crash again. Just another Tuesday.

I really like Facebook. I like the relatively clean lines. I like how easy it is to find people. I like that lots of old classmates are on it. And that it's easy to get in touch. I just really wish the social timeline hadn't gone away. That would be interesting to see now that I have more friends from way back (elementary school). But I can't add multiple levels of schooling to friend detail. I haven't had the courage yet to start up Alumni groups for my classes yet either. Maybe. Or for some now defunct ultimate teams. But it's mostly used by me for historical purposes. Reconnecting. Not so much with present day stuff. Interesting, at least for me. Anyway, i think I've figured out when I need to leave the house to get a trouble free commute. Now I just need to stick to it. Gotta make a dry run to the Millennium Park train station for the Indiana South Shore line that I'll be taking tomorrow night to get to Tracy's holiday party in East Chicago. Awesome. Made a wine run after I got home from work last night, got a red and a white from Kafka, then up to Treasure Island to get some Marsala, of which there are sweet and dry versions in small bottles, so I got both. Which Tracy used to make Chicken Marsala. Watched House and Eli Stone.

So, wandered East after work yesterday, to see the deal is with the South Shore Line. I take the steps down at Randolph and Michigan, and then enter this gleaming, new, Millennium Station with a Cinnabon and other food court specialties. I had no idea this train station existed. I'm impressed. It was all shiny silver and curvy, like from the future, like a space station. Got myself a ticket for tonight to East Chicago, then started wandering through the Chicago Pedway, which connects to the train station. No idea where I was, but knew that I was headed West. Ended up at Macy's on State Street. Seriously, pretty cool. Picked up some odds and ends from Macy's, took the bus back to the old home, picked up some more stuff before walking home to watch the Bears. So got Tracy's holiday party tonight, then headed out to shopping in the 'burbs and dinner the my parents tomorrow night.

I used to cross state borders all the time, driving, flying, all that stuff. It would be funny to count the number of times I've been in Indiana. But it's been a while. So taking the South Shore Line Friday night to East Chicago was a trip. I don't remember the last time I went into another state via ground transportation. But it was super easy. Met a bunch of Tracy's coworkers, and I got to see where she works. Saturday made crepes and bacon for breakfast, then headed out for some shopping on the way out to Woodstock. Stopped by The Arboretum of South Barrington to check out the Arhaus there. Also stopped by a Trader Joe's on the way home. After mass, my parents took us out to Le Vichyssois for an early Christmas dinner, since my dad's going to visit the Philippines over the holidays. Good stuff there, as always. After dinner, worked on setting up a Time Capsule and an Apple TV for them. Sunday, we went for a run around the neighborhood before breakfast at Angelo's, then drove down to Aurora Outlets for some shopping. Did some additional shopping on the way back in as well. Lots of shopping. Which I guess is the season. Had some steak, from my mom, for dinner, and watched some TV. And now it's 30 degrees cooler than yesterday, and I'm trying to stay warm.

Snow party maybe. Total snow storm right now. Sweet. Feeling a little under the weather, or maybe the start of a cold. Something, coming down with something. I think it starts with a mucus backup in the head, sinuses, and a headache. Didn't do much of anything when I got home last night, just curled up on the couch. Watched some YouTube. That Mario Kart Love Song is impressive. Watched Get Smart, an Apple TV rental that was going to expire in 4 days. Tracy made some roasted chicken for dinner, using a new mini roasting pan that we got over the weekend. Going to Market Track's holiday party tonight, at 10pin. And really snowing. Something like 4-6" today.

I guess the holiday season makes me social. Bowling was fun last night, and I think it's one of those things that I'm tempted to get into. I have a nice curve going on, so it at least looks pretty. Maybe someday. Anyway, public transportation made it easy for me to get home, but it took Tracy 3:15 to get home. Seriously. Ugh. Hope it's not that bad tomorrow night. Tonight I'm headed out to Sweets & Savories with Leo (tall), Akira and Bryan. I think I'm out of the woods with whatever sickness I thought I was coming down with. But of course I'm sure I'll come down with it after I said that. I'm loving the biking leg warmers I got over the weekend. I use them as, well, leg warmers. I feel like it's better than long underwear, don't get as hot, and pretty easy to take off if I do warm up enough. They do tend to slide down sometimes, especially after sitting for a while, so it kind of looks like I'm pulling up my stockings sometimes.

Passed on another boys night tonight, due to the weather forecast. Instead, I'm going to make sugar cookies for my wife. Sweets & Savories last night was pretty good. Had the Kobe Burger, beef tallow fries and truffle mac & cheese. Fries I think were my favorite. There were other things on the menu that I also wanted to try, so I want to take Tracy there at some point. The only odd thing was showing up early and being the only person in the restaurant, besides the hostess/bartender/waitress. Definitely odd. But the place was maybe half full by the time we left. Haven't been exercising at all recently, can't remember the last time I even weighed myself on the Wii Fit. Maybe tonight, but I'm actually still sore from bowling on Tuesday. I should be finished up transcoding season 1 of Veronica Mars, and The Matrix trilogy and the six Star Wars movies. Maybe some Kevin Smith movies and the Friends series next. 22 minute sitcoms make for pretty quick and easy Apple TV viewing while waiting for stuff.

Well, storm rolled in later than I thought, but I still stayed in, fearful of too long bus commutes. Tried out some Wii Fit with the balance board on a riser, to make it a little more physically challenging, which was successful. Tracy made chicken adobo, I made sugar cookies following Alton Brown's recipe. Good stuff. And not that many. Watched Private Practice and How I Met Your Mother. Finished transcoding season 1 and started season 2 of Veronica Mars. Finally started up Mail.app again, just to mark all the spam as read. Otherwise, not much going on. Tracy's working tomorrow, I've got to clean some stuff, and get a haircut, and then take the train out to the 'burbs cause the niece is coming in to town. Think we're going shopping on Sunday as well. I should probably get some boots, as the waterproof shoes I have now don't really have high tops, so the slush gets in. Oh well.

Really really really really cold. Luckily, I found my facemask, which will come in handy, and I also have my balaclava hanging out in my bag, but I don't think it's gotten to that point yet. And I need to get over any thoughts that I look goofy wearing it, because warm is better than stylish and cold. Friday night Tracy and I went to dinner at Kanok, no movie. Saturday, while Tracy worked, I had a haircut, picked up breakfast from Whole Foods, and cleaned up the second bedroom. Then took the El down to the LaSalle Station for a train to Oak Forest to get picked up my Tracy on the way out to her parents to visit Baniella. They weren't coming in till later, so stopped at Portillo's for dinner, did some shopping, then waited for them to come home. Sunday hung out with the Argaos for the day, did a little bit more shopping, watched Burn After Reading before coming back into the city. Hard to believe it's Christmas in three days.

Wow. Christmas. 2 Days away. Go figure. More snow. Watched the Bears game last night. Put meta info on the Veronica Mars Season 1. I had leftovers for dinner and Tracy made a spinach dip for her potluck at work today and chili for dinner. She's also headed out to visit her family after work today, and I'm doing errands. Still contemplating Christmas presents. I know. Kind of late. But I'm just so bad at it. Other than that, I'm trying out crossword puzzle applications on the iPhone. I feel like my language has slipped a little, or maybe I'm not exercising my brain all that much, or something. Exactly. Also finally just went ahead and did 2 sets of the week 1 of Urbanathlon training last night. Sore today. Good stuff though. Oh also did some tweaking to the garage door, which apparently needs to be done for temperature variations. And set the thermostat to a constant, instead of fluctuating. But from others, I hear setting it to fluctuate is better. So maybe I'll do that instead, just a question of whether to have heat in the morning or not.

Ah, Christmas eve. The eve before Christmas eve I did some cleaning. Finally canceled RCN service at the old place. Need to drop off the DVR at their office at some point. El ridership seems to be moving to holiday levels, pretty empty, lots of seats. That's kind of nice. Tracy went to her parents after work, was contemplating staying out there due to the weather, but came back in instead. And I had to vacuum and clean the range/oven. Wish we had a giant sink, maybe an apron, or a big laundry type sink to work in. Probably need to do another round of cleaning before the New Year's Eve. Headed out to the in-law tomorrow, my mom's coming down as well, and then I'll come back with my mom into the city, Tracy'll stay there, and then my mom and I will drive to the airport early in the morning the day after Christmas to visit Al and Nicole.

So the trip to Austin went well. Very relaxing. Good times. Good to spend time with family. Didn't really go to Austin, mostly stayed at Al and Nicole's house, eating, watching stuff in their awesome media room. Did have a great dinner out at Cool River Cafe and a very good lunch at Mandola's Italian Market. The drive to the airport last Friday was a little slippery, and our flight was delayed for like 1.5hr, but we got out. Got home last night and started prepping for the party. So, year in review? Maybe. But it's been a good year. Next up, 2009.