December 20th, 2006

    Today we were supposed to go to the Byington Winery to do some Christmas shopping, then head to Santa Cruz to pick up our ordered furniture, stop in at Circuit City to get an ink cartridge for our printer, then on the way home stop and order more firewood and do a little more Christmas shopping.

    The truck had other ideas. The emergency break would not disenage. Pleading, twisting, pulling, pushing, wiggling, tapping, crawling, inspecting and doing everything three times in different orders did not free it. I finally crawled under the truck, found a cotter pin that would release the cable and physically disconnected it so now it hangs down like a droopy mustache under the vehicle. So instead of doing all those things above I just instead broke the truck. Purposely at least. So now I can at least drive it to Ernies so they can fix it right.

December 17th, 2006

    Yesterday Kim and I went over to Patrick's, our neighbor, house for an early solstice party. I left a bit early as I'm still recovering from a cold but I did allow myself a few small glasses of wine (and don't tell anyone but I actually ate tri-tip steak which was actually quite good).

    Kim and I have been keeping the woodstove going and today is quite sunny, though we've been getting some good rainy days. I've finished a good book called "What Einstein Told His Cook" which goes into the science behind cooking and food in fairly simple terms.

    Hank is doing very well and is growing back his fur. We've received Buddy's blood results and he is indeed adrenal as well! So we'll be going through another surgery soon.

    Also got around to watching the first two "Ghost in the Shell" DVDs from the first season of the Stand Alone Complex series. If you like cyber punk anime stuff, I recommend it. Not really for kids though!

November 24th, 2006

    We had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday with our friend Travis joining us. He brought a nice lentil stew and we ate cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy. Buttnernut squash soup, brussel sprouts Pollanaise and the Tofurky with baked vegetables rounded out the meal. I didn't even have room for pumpkin pie!

November 19th, 2006

    Our ferret Hank successfully had his left adrenal gland removed on Thursday. He spent two days at the vet's recovering and is now at home acting much like his old self. He has a very grisly row of staples holding his insides in at the moment. I'll have to post a picture. He seems none too happy at having to have antibiotics and pain killers squirted into his mouth twice daily but mercifully that need only go on for two weeks until the staples come out.

    That dark splat you are most likely seeing at the top of the page is a 30 second updated picture from an old Creative Webcam II I have hooked up to my Linux desktop. If the dark splat happens to look like me then I'm probably at my computer while you are reading this!

November 11th, 2006

    First, a small round of applause for some (hopeful) rebalancing in the wake of our Elections. Here in California Govenor Arnold managed to win a re-election, so we'll have the Govenator for a few more years. That doesn't seem so bad to me. The people of California authorized a ton of bonds to repair roads, dykes, provide low cost housing and repair schools. They also passed a proposition that severely limits where sex offenders can live in relation to schools and parks. The local paper says that our town of Boulder Creek actually fits the requirements, so that may become worrisome. I have a feeling that some new 'parks' may be constructed pretty quickly. The people of California did not opt for more cigarette taxes, parental notification for teenage abortion, more taxes on oil production, new parcel taxes for statewide school fund, campaign finance reform or restrictions on eminent domain. That seems mostly good to me. The big question now is whether taxes will have to go up.

    The other big event was the septic tank. After living and/or owning this house for 10 years I decided it was time to know. So I unearthed the cover to the tank and looked inside. The cover was pretty severely rotten so it was a good time to look before something collapsed. Pete's Outflow from Aptos came up and pumped the tank. A septic tank has a baffle (wooden wall) down the middle of it that keeps the solids on one side while letting the liquids pass through to the leech field beyond. Our baffle had collapsed which is very worrisome. When solids pass into your leech field they tend to make permanent blockages that can cause your leech field to fail and then you have to dig and install a new one. Not cheap and not easy (labor and permit wise). Dean from Pete's, agreed to come back the day after he pumped to install a new baffle for us. The guy worked a full day at his regular job, had to rescue his fiancee from a car breakdown and still came to the house after that to do the job. He worked from 8:30pm until 11pm and did a great job. Especially challenging because the old septic tank from 1930 (obviously repaired at least once) had long since fallen out of square. To top it off he charged me less than the price he had quoted me the day before. I'm so impressed. So know Kim and I rest a little easier about the condition of the septic system, while at the same time we pray that not too much damage was done to the leech field while the main baffle had failed.

November 2nd, 2006

    Kim and I took a stroll through downtown Boulder Creek for Halloween. From 5pm until 7pm the store owners along the main street sit out front of their shops, most dressed in costumes, and hand out candy. Since Boulder Creek neighborhoods don't really lend themselves to trick or treating, most parents take their kids to town to make a circuit. While we were walking around, we saw our neighbor Frank handing out candy and found out he's a member of the local Independant Order of Odd Fellows . He took a moment to show us the building. It's a nice hundred year old structure.

    Yesterday in preparation for more rain, I went out and tidied up the yard, split a couple stumps into firewood that I had been working on and then helped my neighbor Karen drape a tarp over a slide that is threatening their backdeck. The slide splits the difference between my back property and theirs. Then Kim and I assembled the fouton frame that was damaged by one of the tenants who had been staying at the house. It's not like new but it does work again and it's nice to be sleeping up off the floor.

    Also we've ordered some furniture from Sweets in the Nude, in Santa Cruz and we've picked out the stain that we like (Black Cherry). It will be nice to get the clothes out of boxes and into some proper dressers.

    At the end of the day yesterday I went over in my mind jobs that need doing around the house. I stopped when I got to fourteen and went to bed.

    Happy Halloween!

October 22nd, 2006

    Our friend Paul was out from New Hampshire for a conference at Google this past week. He was able to take off a few days and visit us in our forest abode. We went for a great hike in Big Basin on Thursday and then visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Friday.

    Yesterday right after Paul had to leave, Kim and I went over to our neighbors, Mark and Val, to celebrate their new deck which they just finished. It looks great and held up with nary a complaint to a party's worth of guests walking on it.

October 10th, 2006

    Sorry for the large gap, been a bit lazy about the blog. Kim and I had a good time at the Highland Games in Ben Lomond. We heard bag pipes and watched men (and women!) throw large objects about. I also saw an old friend who I played footbag with in the past. We chatted for a good while and yesterday Kim and I went to Frederick St. Park and we all played some footbag. Ben then invited the lot of us over to his lovely ocean side house for dinner. Smashing!

September 18th, 2006

    The neighborhood had a barbeque to welcome us on Saturday. It was a good chance for Kim to meet everyone and I got to know my neighbors a bit better. Like Harold and Elenor who have owned a house on the street since 1950. They just stay here on the weekends and live in San Bruno otherwise.

    Our neighbor Patrick had looked into the history of the neighborhood and found out that Band Road is named after a Lady Band who donated the land for the road and there used to be a narrow track railroad that went up Sunset Road to take logs out of the forest.

    Sunday Mark and Val invited us to go for a walk in the woods up beyond Patrick's house and it was nice to see the old trails again (and some new ones).

September 9th, 2006

    Kim and I bought a 1975 Toyota Pickup yesterday for $900. Runs pretty well but it will need new tires and brake work for the rear drums. Kim really likes it. I think it's her truck now. ;)

    We saw the hawk again. Actually perched in a redwood across the road so we got a good look at it. We suspect it may be a Redtail.

    Neighbor's dog was running around our porch yesterday with a strange 'stick' in it's mouth. Turned out to be an old dessicated deer leg. Kim took the leg across the stream bed and threw it into the woods. I bet the dog went and retrieved it though. ;)

    Chicago sent me a parting gift: $90 ticket for 'running a red light' that they have recorded via automated camera. It's clear I'm making a right turn on red in the photo so I am trying their 'contest by mail' option. There is a chance there was a 'no turn on red' sign that I missed. Unfortunately the picture isn't clear enough to read the street signs on the utility pole.

August 29th, 2006

    We have returned from the void! Comcast came by today and hooked up the Internet (with a capital 'I'). I'm sure there is lots to tell about the trip and all that but for now, safe to say that things are becoming more homey all the time. I'll post more as I think of it or in response to email.

July 27th, 2006

    We are back from our first trip to California. Everything went well and we delivered our two truck loads of stuff. We actually made it to the house in Boulder Creek at like midnight on Saturday, so we had all of Sunday and Monday to unpack and get things moved in. Our neighbors were really nice and welcomed us back. Kim's plants got a bit burned up in the hot California sun but hopefully they will recover.

    Our ferrets are really stressed. Hank has been licking Buddy's ear but the added stress has increased this behavior so when we got home Buddy's ear was red and inflamed. So now we have to keep them seperated, which is added stress to Hank. He is starting to lose hair on his tail (which has happened to him once before when we added Buddy to the mix).

July 19th, 2006

    Well we are late as usual but I think we are just about ready to leave. Both U-hauls packed pretty well and we should be able to take the remainder when we get back on the 25th (I hope it's the 25th!). It is going to be tight! We have 5 days to get to California and get everything unpacked. God, it sounds horrible. We'll see how it goes.

July 16th, 2006

    Well in just 3 days Kim and I are scheduled to make our first drive out to California with two U-hauls full of stuff. One U-Haul will actually be dedicated to Kim's plants. Instead of packing we've been busy going around seeing friends and family. I actually have about six boxes worth of stuff packed up but really the majority of the stuff is Kim's and she would like the opportunity to go through it. She has lived here since 1998 so there is quite a bit of stuff. Well, we are making a second trip, so whatever there isn't time to pack and sort, we can get the 2nd time around.

July 4th, 2006

    Happy 4th of July! Independance day for us yanks here in the U.S. Kim and I have been squeezing in social calls as we near our big moving day. July 14th we have determined will be our first trip out to California driving, not one, but two U-haul trucks with a good amount of our worly possessions.

    So we had a lovely dinner with Laura and Keith on the 2nd and yesterday we visisted Kim's dad and Daphne. We actually went bowling with Keith and Laura. Now I have bowled a total of three games of ten-pin bowling. Well almost three, Brunswick turned off the lane when we ran out of time.

    Today John and Anne's friends are over to celebrate the fourth. It's the usual assortment of backyard grilling, drinking and then followed by a walk down to the highschool to see the Oak Park fireworks. Good times to be sure.

July 1st, 2006

    I was quite pleased today to finish my security light project at Kim's mom's house. It entailed drilling a 1.25" hole through to the outside wall and snipping a hole through the aluminum siding; running 3/4" conduit from the junction box in the middle of the garage, to the garage door wall, down to a switch box and then back up to the hole; pulling wire through the whole set and then stripping, splicing and soldering each connection. I was quite pleased that everything worked first try. I did have to get creative fastening the right side of the utility box to the outside wall, since the inside wall had a huge gap right there. An unorthodox use of a molly solved that problem.

June 29th, 2006

    As promised here are the photos of this year's Wayne's Cave trip.

    2006 Wayne's Cave pictures

June 25th, 2006

    We have returned from a our expedition to Wayne('s) Cave. There are few people who have decided to traverse the 1200 foot crawl way that leads into the larger rooms beyond and now Kim and I have done so twice. And we have coaxed two more people into the experience, my sister (who traveled half way across the country for the privilege and our neighbor home from college, Devin). We actually had seven people go into the cave this time which was the largest group our friend Neal has seen do it. This was Neal's 4th time into the cave and he swears it will be his last. Just like he's sworn the other three times. Kim on the other hand loved it and is ready to go again. When we get some pictures developed I'll see about posting them. In the meantime check out last year photos.

2005 Wayne Cave photos

June 21st, 2006

    A fine summer solistice to you. My sister Shelly is in town for a caving trip that we are taking this weekend. She spent two extra hours waiting in Philadelphia for a mystery delay today but otherwise had a fine journey. Also today is Kim's Aunt Jackie's birthday. Happy birthday!

June 9th, 2006

    As any experienced pet owner will tell you, when you decide to take a pet into your home, you know that some time in the future that pet will break your heart. Today was that day for our beloved ferret Andre. Yesterday Andre did not come out for his ritual morning chicken-paste feed. When I was headed out of the house I gathered him from under the bed to put him in his cage and noticed that he was very listless. I was unsure whether he was just very sleepy or if something was up. I tucked him into his hammock with Hank and Buddy and headed out.

    When Kim and I came home about five hours later he was still very listless and in fact it seemed a bit worse. We called and scheduled an appointment with Animal House of Chicago to have the vet look at him. As my back was bothering me, I went to lay down on the couch to rest a bit.

    Kim came into the living room a couple hours later and reported she couldn't find Andre. We both searched around the house for him until I heard him in the play tube in my office. He had just vomitted and made a short painful distressed noise. Tomorrow was now too far away for the vet. We called a few emergency vets and found out that our old vet, Midwest Animal Hospital now kept 24 hour service. We headed off there right away.

    Andre was alert and attentive in the carrier on the way to the vet which was encouraging to see. We handed him over to Dr. Smith who told us that upon examination Andre looked out of it enough that an overnight stay was warranted. An X-ray showed what might be an intestinal blockage. Dr. Smith said she would take another X-ray in a couple hours to see if the opaque spot on the X-ray had disappeared or not. We headed home glad that Andre was being looked after.

    Around 11pm Dr. Smith called to say that the 2nd X-ray still showed the suspicious opaque section. She asked if we wanted to do immediate sugery or opt for some barium dye in conjuction with more radiology to see if anything was moving through the GI tract. We opted for the 2nd, concerned about whether surgery was necessary or not.

    At 3 a.m. Dr. Smith called again saying that the barium had not moved beyound the stomach and advised immediate surgery. We nervously agreed.

    At 5 a.m. Dr. Smith called and reported that the surgery was complete but Andre at the completion of surgery had stopped breathing. She and her assistant were performing ressussitation and asked for permission to continue. We of course agreed and were besides ourselves with worry. Shortly there after another call from the vet reported that while they had succeeded in getting his heart and breathing to start twice, each time the heart would stop after a short period. Again the vet asked if we wanted them to continue. We told her to do so and we got into the car and drove quickly there.

    When we arrived at the vet we were shown immediately to the operating room where Andre was still on the table. He was breathing without assistance but his eyes were fixed forward and he was unresponsive. Dr. Smith told us that while his heart and lungs were working there was no retinal response (his eyes did not twitch when a finger was lightly touched to his pupil). There was some bleeding from his mouth. Our ferret while alive was almost undeniably brain dead.

    We said our tearful farewells, though in truth he had already departed. Then Dr. Smith administered a drug to stop his heart and lungs and release his body from further suffering.

    We drove home in heavy silence and today is a malaise of grief. I wonder if Hank and Buddy yet suspect that their friend and playmate is not coming back home. 3 years was all we got to spend with Andre, having adopted him from the shelter at a year of age. Plenty of time to earn our strongest love and eternal rememberance. Farewell Andre, you will be sorely missed.

May 29th, 2006

    A memorable Memorial Day to you. Kim and I drove out to Hartford Michigan on Friday to camp the weekend at Peg and Russ's land. Both Saturday and Sunday (and today) were hot and humid. On Sunday we went to the Van Buren State Park to take a dip in Lake Michigan. That water is cold even on a 90 degree day! On the way back home Sunday we stopped at the Indiana Dunes visitor center and learned a little about that State Park there. I regret to say that we didn't stop in to see our friends Ted and Lynn even though we drove directly thruogh Michigan City. We also drove both ways without ever touching 90 or 94 which was a pretty good treat. US12 was much more scenic and had some shade to offer from the state park trees.

May 24th, 2006

    Saw The Da Vinci Code last night and really liked it. The reviews have been pretty lackluster so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed watching the film. Now I'm left wondering if I enjoyed it as much as I did because I liked the message or if other folks liked it less for the same reason! Probably a bit of both no doubt.

May 22nd, 2006

    Happy Victoria day! Had a chat with my Dad yesterday over AIM. Here is (part of) the fun.

(16:44:33) Chris: Hi Ho Dad. How are you?
(16:44:54) Dad: It has stopped raining.
(16:45:04) Chris: Well that's good news.
(16:45:18) Chris: The news has been very excited about the amount of rain in NE

(16:45:40) Chris: Kim and our nephew Ben are off to take a horse back riding lesson today
(16:46:00) Dad: Yea, its sort of high drama, at least on TV.
(16:46:57) Dad: The last of that I had, in Estes Park, CO, back in the fifties.
(16:47:10) Chris: Never knew you were in Colorado
(16:47:59) Dad: Two trailer parks get flooded, and the news spends
a half hour doing interviews.
(16:48:15) Chris: interviews for who?
(16:50:30) Dad: Colorado, early fifties, family trip, to a education
conference for college presidents. Outside of Denver..
Colorado Springs, small town, before the Air Force
Adademy.
(16:50:45) Chris: huh, neat
(16:51:04) Dad: Interviews, just to kill time on the nightly news.
(16:51:50) Chris: ah right
(16:52:10) Dad: If you do a web search on Estes Park, there might
be some old photos.
(16:53:02) Chris: ah yeah
(16:53:07) Chris: they have their own web site
(16:53:13) Chris: www.estes-park.com
(16:56:12) Chris: opened up a jar of beets I pickled 6 weeks ago today. Turned out not too bad. More mild than I would have thought.
(16:56:56) Dad: What did you put in them?
(16:57:22) Chris: the vinegar was apple cider vinegar
(16:57:50) Chris: then some horseradish, bay leaves, dry mustard, allspice, garlic and onions
(16:57:58) Chris: plus a little salt
(16:58:17) Dad: My God.

    My friend Paul gave me a good link to some NH flooding photos courtesy of WMUR.

May 19th, 2006

    Kim and I went up to do some yardwork at her mom's yesterday and she then treated us to dinner at the Silo. We had meant to go the day before but a mix of getting started too late and then a torrential hail storm changed our plans.

    On Tuesday I satisfied my long ambition of seeing "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" with Kim. It was just as good as I remember! And Kim liked it too which is remarkable in that I had built it up pretty high over the years. We got it through Netflix which we mooch off of Kim's mom for.

    And finally Sunday was Mother's day and Kim's mom was over to share it with us and the folks downstairs. It was a casual but very pleasant day and since the weather was nice we spent much of it outdoors throwing a Fox Tail around. For dinner the whole lot of us went to the Flat Top grille for dinner which worked out very nice indeed.

May 4th, 2006

    Kim and I went up to Knollwood today to do some work around her mom's house. A family of baby bunnies are living in a brush pile in the backyard and a family of field mice are living in the shed. Otherwise the plants look like they've weathered the winter pretty well.

    We then made the drive back to Oak Park to take John out to dinner for his birthday. We went to Flat Top Grill which was remarkably busy for a Thursday night. Still it went very well. Happy 38th John.

April 30th, 2006

    Just got home today from a weekend caving trip. Went down near Campbellsburg, Indiana where we went into Henderson Park. We went into two caves and we even had our pet ferret Buddy along (though he decided to stay out of the caves and safely snuggled in the tent).

    We actually hadn't intended on bringing buddy but we had forgotten to arrange to have someone administer his medicine. So we packed up the play pen, his carrier and some clean up stuff and brought him along.

April 16th, 2006

    Happy Easter! We had a traditional family gathering with four generations present. Kim and myself plus John and Anne, their kids: Halley, Christopher and Ben, Kim's Uncle Tony and Aunt Linda, their son Brian, Kim's mom and Kim's Grandmother. 12 people! We had a big ole' brunch. Kim's mom provides us with Easter baskets every year. How come I never got needle nose pliers as a kid in my basket? The kids got some fun games that involved balloons and lasers. Ain't technology great?

April 4th, 2006

    Today we released 7 mice into the wild! Well, okay, into the forest preserve west of Oak Park. Lately our mouse trap Viktor has been quite adept at catching mice (and keeping them alive). We transfered the lot of them into the wood where I trust they, and we, will be much happier.

    Now we are off to see Aunt Jackie who is having surgery today. She was in a fairly severe car accident three weeks ago and seemed to have walked away unscathed. Well her luck ran out and she started feeling nauseated.

    We actually just got back from Northwestern Hospital where we saw Jackie after her surgery. It turns out that she had two subdermal hematomas that were exerting pressure on her brain, causing her nausea and dizziness. She had an operation today where they drilled two holes into her skull to relieve the pressure and then bathed her brain in saline to rinse out the old dried blood! Amazing. She actually has a drain coming out of her head right now.

    She now has to stay laying down for the next three days (at least) to allow her brain time to expand back into it's old shape! The really amazing thing is that she was totally cognizant before and after the surgery.

April 2nd, 2006

    Kim and I joined Nick and Mark last night to see a performance of "Cabaret" at Wright College. Kim and Nick's friend from Champaign, Laura, had the part of Sally Bowles (the lead female voice for those, like myself, not in the know). Kim met Laura in the theater program at UIUC and Laura had actually been a professional child actor. Her performance last night certainly showed her comfort at being on stage and the college performance was much improved for it.

March 27th, 2006

    Four small grey mice sit in a cage in the nook off the kitchen. They are captives from our Iron Cat mouse trap. All winter long the mice have had their fun in our house and given us trouble as we clean up their messes and secure our food and the food of our ferrets. Well with the advent of spring we are beginning our relocation program. Soon those cute but unwelcome rodents will be set free among the forest preserves west of Oak Park along the Des Plaines river.

March 23rd, 2006

    On Tuesday morning our ferret Buddy gave us a scare. He lost control of his back legs and was having trouble walking. We took him to the vet and the doctor told us his blood sugar was very low. A ferret who has been fasting has a blood sugar of about 60. Buddy's was at 30. It's a common symptom of a ferret that has insulinoma, which is a cancer of the pancreas. The vet gave us a couple medications to help him with his symptoms but if it is in fact insulinoma, then it is untreatable. About 50% of all domesticated ferrets get insulinoma, so we were statistically bound to see at least one case of it in our 3 pets. I'm pleased to say that Buddy has responded well to the medicine over the last couple days and seems in fine spirits. He definitely does not enjoy getting a syringe of meds squirted down his throat twice a day though.

    Also on Tuesday Kim and I exercised our privilage and duty of voting. The results were almost entirely to our favor. The current Governor won the primary which is perhaps for the best, though I admit I did not vote for him this time around.

March 18th, 2006

    Last night we went to see "Sita Ram" at the Lookingglass Theater. We went with Nicky and Mark, who were available to take two spare tickets at the last minute. The play was an adaption of the Ramayana (or some portion there of), put to music and dance. It mixed tastes of tradition with the contemporary. At the very least it succeeded at being entertaining.

    The night before we went and caught a preview of the film, "V for Vendetta". I had read the graphic novel in preparation some time before so there were big shoes to be filled. Still the movie was quite good. Kim's critique was 'that film kicked my ass'. I don't think I can top that.

March 12th, 2006

    Friday we went to Patagonia to see a slide show on the Tsongas National Forest. Afterwards we went for drinks next door at the Goose Island Brewery.

    Yesterday we went to celebrate our friend Bob's 40th birthday. We started off by bowling. It was my first time really bowling (I did do some candlepin bowling as a boy. Midwesterners are fascinated by the notion of it). I did pretty good! I got a spare and a strike and scored 99. Not bad! Afterwards we went to Bob's for pizza and to watch the Big Lebowski. Pretty good time.

    Today we are going to see a caberet style opera at Pleasant Home in Oak Park. Another first! We'll see how I like opera.

March 5th, 2006

    Today is Kim's mom's 60th Birthday. I can say that because she never comes here to read this page. Happy Birthday to me mum-in-law.

    We took her to Lovells of Lake Forest for a fancy dinner. She is a great fan of the space program so it was very delightful for her. You may be familiar with Jim Lovell of Apollo 13.

February 23rd, 2006

    John gave us a call yesterday and told us that Poi Dog Pondering was going to play at Fitzgerald's. Kim and I drove out there and bought the last two tickets. Poi shared the bill with Nicholas Tremulis and Alejandro Escovedo. The place was packed. We spent most of the time guarding our precious spot at the bar and sneaking peeks at the bands through a sea of heads. Music went from 8pm until midnight and while it was a long time to stand it was definitely a worth while experience.

    In Olympic matters, I'm routing for the USA and France to win big these next few days and Germany to come up short. Not that I dislike Germany but my friend Jamie is running an Olympic pool of which I'm still in the running.

February 21st, 2006

    Turns out I brought back a cold from California. Had the sniffles and generally no energy from Friday until yesterday. I slept on the couch two nights to try and spare Kim from getting a second cold in one season. Luckily it seems to be fairly short lived and symptoms are already fading away. So watching Olympics have been the evening entertainment.

February 16th, 2006

    I'm back from a trip to California. I flew out last friday to go see my house and make sure all was in order. Friday I met up with Travis for a visit and stayed at his place that night.

    On Saturday I drove down to the house and met Treesa, who is looking after the house and Curtis, who is living there as well and doing some work in the yard and under the house. Curtis gave me a walk around the house to show me what he had been doing and afterward we all went down to Santa Cruz to play a round of disc golf. That was the first time that I have played on a 'real' course. It's a lot harder than one might think. Treesa took us to Malabar restaurant in Santa Cruz for dinner.

    Sunday there were kickers in Santa Cruz so I drove down there early and walked along the boardwalk at the Pacific Ocean. Then I headed over to Frederick Street Park and waited for folks to show up. AJ was first to arrive and we set up the net and catched up on each other's news. We had a pretty decent kick and although I was quite rusty, was pleased to see that many skills had remained intact. It really is like riding a bike.

    I ate at the Brewery that night and their beer is still good.

    Monday Curtis took me under the house and showed me what he was doing there. I called up my neighbor Frank from the Electric Electric Company (his daughter named his electrician service when she was still very young) and he came up and made some recommendations on fixing the electrical service. Then later in the afternoon Eric from Jacobson and Daughters came up and I paid him for some professional advice on the state of the house and what needed immediate attention.

    I had arranged to see david for dinner Monday but he had to bail at the last minute. Luckily Travis was available again and we ate at a great Ethiopian restaurant in San Jose called Gojos. Travis and I chatted for a long while until travel weariness caught up with me and I had to beg off to get back to the house for some sleep.

    Tuesday I went into Felton and picked up a permit to redo the electrical service. That went so well that I had time to stop in at Big Basin State Park and have a nice walk through the trees there. Then it was back to the house to meet with Clark who is doing engineering design for the needed retaining wall out front. That went well and Treesa walked in right as we were finishing up. The three of us had a nice chat until Clark had to head out.

    Treesa cooked us a nice evening meal and I had a relaxing night before packing up Wednesday and heading back to the airport. My travel was flawless with no hiccups. In fact when I walked out the O'Hare doors to the street, there was Kim just arriving to pick me up. Amazing.

    So now it's back in Chicago and home sweet home. Kim and I went to La Majada last night for a belated Valentine's Day dinner and the ferrets welcomed me home by rifling through all my luggage.

    As a side note I have to mention that the film "An Unfinished Life" with Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez actually deserves a viewing. I was disappointed that it was the return flight feature (considering that I had missed "Walk the Line" by one day) but when I gave the movie a chance I was very pleasantly surprised. The characters and their relationship with grief and loss are actually quite compelling. I had to admit that as much as J Lo has crummy taste in men (and perhaps off screen she is a diva), on screen she is capable of delivering a watchable performance. So if you get the opportunity to see the film, I say give it a try.

February 3rd, 2006

    Holy cow, what a day. ComEd turned off the electricity today to do some work on the street and when it came back on my server wouldn't power up. I've had this thing since like 1995 and it's never had a problem (yes it is old and slow but it is, or was dependable). After much crying and wringing of hands, out of sheer desperation I was repeatedly plugging it in and voila it booted. Now that is scary and haunted. And the harddrive sounds sick now. Cry! But joy! It's alive. Now I am frantically copying everything off it thinking it's on death's door.

    Also it looks like I'll be flying out to California. The people staying at my house in Boulder Creek are reporting problems with the house that need repair and frankly it's come to the point where I just need to go out there and look at it to understand everything that is happening.

    It has been a very exhausting day, pulling things apart and talking around in circles.

January 30th, 2006

    Time flies. Well Kim is thoroughly engrossed in the Ursula LeGuin books of Earthsea. I ordered them from Magic Tree bookstore in Oak Park after we learned that Goro Miyazaki (Hayao's son) is going to be making a Studio Ghibli animation called 'Tales from Earthsea'. She has been literally staying up all night reading them. I'm not too far behind but she has certainly out paced me.

    We recently saw friends Sally and Ron to see an Imax presentation of the Grand Canyon. It was pretty good but perhaps since Kim and I have hiked down into it, it wasn't as thrilling as other Imax things have been. Nothing beats first hand experience.

    Last Saturday we went downtown with Kim's mom to have lunch at Berghoff's since they are closing their doors in February. They've been around for about a hundred years. A real Chicago institution. They aren't closing from lack of business though. Just that old Mr. Berghoff is the last in the line who wants to carry on the family tradition. He'd rather close the doors than see the restaurant sold.

    Well when we got downtown the line to get into the restaurant at 3pm was all the way down the street and around the corner. We didn't have it in us to wait so we went to Italian Village instead for a nice meal. There we talked to a waiter who said that at 4pm the line outside Berghoffs was 347 people! And it's only going to get bigger as the closing date approaches. I heard that the bar tender at Berghoff's has been there for 30 years. It's one of the few places in Chicago that the wait staff actually have full benefits. Downtown won't be the same.

January 9th, 2006

    Kim and I dropped off Josh at the airport today. He was in town for a few days for the Adventure Travel Conference at the Rosemont Conference center. Josh runs a travel company that specializes in wildlife viewing, called Wild Planet Adventures. The conference went really well. We passed out two full boxes of brochures and had many people interested in being contacted. Josh's travels now include Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Peru and the Galapagos Islands. Besides a great conference we had a great dinner each night he was here. Although we did have a hard time finding something open past 10pm on a Thursday in Oak Park (Head towards Molly Malone's if you find yourself in that situation). We went to Hemmiway's Bistro on Friday, met Kim's friends Gail and Ari at the Wishbone on Saturday and Josh requested a revisit to Ben Pao, which he remembered warmly from his previous trips to Chicago, for Sunday night. We managed to ship his packages and himself off today with a little delay but no great difficulty. Hooray!

January 4th, 2006

    Happy New Year everyone! Kim and I are celebrating the new year by stumbling around the house, moaning about our head colds.