Where was I this weekend?

Here's a photo to give you a hint.

I have a ton more pictures to go through before I can write up a proper post. Damn those digital cameras with large memory cards!

Hope you had a good weekend.

It's been a busy weekend!

As you know, Jenn ran the Chicago Marathon this weekend. Unfortunately, an injury caused her to stop at the halfway mark. She was not happy, of course. The day before the race when we took the dogs to the boarding place she pulled something in her left leg. She was limping the night before the marathon, which is never a good thing, but she went out that morning anyway. She put a lot of time and effort into getting ready for this, there was no way a simple muscle pull was going to stop her. I give her a lot of credit for that, I would have wimped out immediately.

We all stayed downtown that night, and since the hotel was on the race route, we all went out to see her at the 2.5 mile mark. She was already limping a bit. Again, not good. But she kept going. I left the kids with the grandparents and went out with Jenn's sister, cousin, and her sister's boyfriend and hopped on the train to go to the 8 mile mark. She was still running, but now she asked me for some of the Aleve. She was limping a bit worse, now. But she said she wasn't going to stop.

At this point we went back to the hotel since the 12.5 mile mark was only a few blocks away and I could meet up with the kids again. Before we got there Jenn sent a message asking us to pick up a knee brace for her. That was new, and certainly not a good sign. By the time we saw her she was limping much worse. The new problem arose in her knee on the opposite side. At this point Jenn said she may call it at the halfway point if the brace didn't help. We all thought that was a good idea. About ten minutes after we saw her she sent me a text saying she was stopping. Her knee now hurt more than her other leg. Based on how she has been walking the last two days, it was a good decision.

We are all proud of her. She tried her best. Heck, she tried period, much more than I would do for a marathon. That's just crazy. Not to mention she raised over $1200 for Children's Memorial Hospital. So, can you join me in a chant of:

"Way to go Jenn!"

Thanks.

In other news...

You may have noticed a new widget on the right side of the blog. See it? Well, about three weeks ago the someone from the Schmap Guides sent me an e-mail saying one of my photos on Flickr was short-listed for inclusion in there new Orlando Guide. They asked if I would be interested in allowing them to use it. So, I checked them out to make sure they were legit and then agreed. What the heck? So, turns out they chose to use mine, as well as several others. But still, it's kind of cool. Oh, you can go here, then bring your cursor down to the Epcot and watch as the pictures change on the upper-right. One of them is mine. Just look for my one by Mike. I think I'm the only one with that name there. So, that was kind of nice.

There's more, but that is all the fun stuff for now. I need to go make dinner. Sloppy Joe's, anybody?

Edit: Turns out you can get my picture from the widget, too. You need to scroll over the map to get to Epcot then click "photos" and you can scroll through them. Not much easier, I know.

Marathon Weekend

It's the marathon weekend. And, I don't mean it's a long weekend. Well, it is a holiday weekend, but that's not what I mean either. Should I just get to the point?

This is the weekend that Jenn is running the Chicago Marathon. Sorry, The Bank of America Chicago Marathon. I need to make sure I get it right, just in case the FTC thinks there is some kind of blogging shenanigans going on.

Today Jenn went downtown to get her racing packet at the expo. I was supposed to go with her, but I ended up napping. I've been a little under the weather the last two days. I think I got it from Jenn since she had a bad cold about two weeks ago. At least it's me and not her!

Tomorrow we head downtown in the morning to drop off the dogs, come back out here to take our son to basketball, come home and get everything together, then go downtown again to get to our hotel. Yes, I know, we live in the same area as the marathon, but it's not easy to get there that early and Jenn wants as much sleep, and as little stress, as possible on the morning of the marathon. Plus, the hotel is part of her birthday present that was a few days ago. I mean the night's stay in the hotel. I didn't buy the hotel for her.

On Sunday, when it's going to be in the 30s(!), Jenn will head to the starting line, and the kids and I will go outside to see her run past the hotel just past the two mile mark. Then I'm going to go off with her sister and cousin and try to get glimpses of her throughout the race. I'm sure Jenn is happy it is going to be so cool the day of the race, but I'd like it to be a bit warmer. Say, 20 degrees or so. Seventy-five would be perfect!

Right now Jenn is watching The Spirit of the Marathon to get all psyched up to run the race. I'm here typing on the keyboard because I have no spirit for the marathon. It's too long. Way too long. The human body wasn't designed to run that far. That's why we invented cars. And before there were cars we made animals take us where we wanted to go.

So, to sum it up, we have a busy weekend. Not sure when I'll be back, probably not until Monday is my guess. I may have to carry Jenn around the house after she is done and I can't type while doing that.

Have a good weekend!

It's Monday, right?

Pardon me if I am a little confused; it's been an odd weekend. I worked Saturday during the day, then we went to a holiday party at night, I slept in on Sunday, then I went to work for the overnight shift. The midnight shift always messes me up because I start at 11pm the day before it shows on my schedule. In other words, when I went in at 11pm on Sunday my schedule showed I was working on Monday. So, when I am awake, I'm never 100 percent sure what day it is. At least I work during the day tomorrow. Then I am off Wednesday, and I go back to work Thursday. I have vacation time at the end of the month so I'm working all my days early. Got that? Yes, I realize that this has been the most exciting paragraph I've ever written. Thanks for saying so!

I believe I've mentioned that winter has arrived here already, to make it better we are supposed to get some freezing rain tonight. I like the way freezing rain makes the trees shine, I do not like how it makes you drive sideways down the street, slide through intersections, and just plain make it seem like the steering wheel is not connected to anything. It was supposed to start hours ago and we have nothing yet. I'm hoping it misses us. I'd much rather have a few inches of snow. With snow I can make snowman, what do you do with ice? Besides spend hours scraping of so you can open the car door. I told Jenn the other night that we are either moving to a warm climate when we retire or buying a place to live during the winter months. We better start saving. Come on economy, let's get moving! My 401K is not going to make money on it's own.

Okay, enough complaining about the weather. I should get some other things done anyway.

How was your weekend? Or Monday for that matter?

Weekends, they go by so fast

It really feels like it should still be Saturday. This weekend went by way too fast. Well, at least I don't have to work tomorrow, so I guess you could say it is still like Saturday night for me.

Saturday was jam packed with activities. It started off by my alarm going off at 7:00am reminding me that I signed up to run a 5K that I was not really prepared for. I hit snooze twice, each time trying to decide if I was going to run it or not. Finally I decided I should. I've been a slacker lately and it was time to get my butt in gear.

I had my clothes ready the night before, but I didn't think about how cold it was going to be in the morning, so I forgot to hunt down my sweat pants. I think I spent 20 minutes looking for them, each minute getting more pissed because I knew I had just seen them. Eventually I gave up and grabbed my running tights, I'm not a big fan of wearing them in public, but I felt I had no choice. Then, just as I was grabbing my keys, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was my sweat pants. They were in the laundry room, which I had checked 10 times, hanging up on the little rack we have. Obviously, I failed to look there.

Anyway, I ran the race. I don't have an official time (my watch said 30 minutes exactly. What are the chances of that?) to share with you, but I stuck around a while after the race to see if there was an outside chance I was the only one in my age group. The race was small and I thought I might get an award. Hey, that is the only chance I'm going to get one! I had to leave before an announcements where made. I needed to be home by 10:30am to go to my son's school. To help out with Market Days.

I don't know if Market Day is everywhere, so I'll exlain quickly. You can order food, usually frozen, through them and the school gets some money. It's a nice way to get some food and help out the school at the same time. Since we had to help out, I had time to go home, change, then go to the school. You'll notice I didn't mention shower in that last sentence. Yeah, I tried to stay downwind from everybody.

We had to unload the truck, count all the contents to make sure we have everything ordered, separate the food into each person's order, then get the food from the gym to the front door for people to pick up. I was getting kind of tired by the end. I was really second-guessing my decision of running before helping out with everything. But hey, it's for the school, right?

We finished up there and got home just before 1pm. I gave the kids some lunch, had a little snack myself, then streched out on the couch for a little while. See, we weren't done yet.

After my brief nap, we got the kids bathed, then cleaned ourselves out to go out to dinner. Yes, Jenn and I got to go out to dinner. By ourselves. Neither of us could remember the last time it was just us at dinner. Where did we go you ask? Why "The Most Romantic Resturant in Chicago" of course. It's called Geja's Cafe . Let me tell you a little bit about it.

It's a foundue resturaunt , first of all. It's small, and dark, and crazy busy. They take reservations for 5pm. That's it. After that it is a free-for-all. You could get there at 7pm and wait an hour or three, you never know. But, it was fun. Jenn and I have never done fondue before, so we weren't quite sure what to get. We ended up getting the a combination of beef, chicken, and various seafood. If you know me at all, you know I didn't touch the seafood, but Jenn said it was good.

Like I said, we never had fondue before, so I spent the first few minutes at the table scoping out the other people. I wanted to see what they were doing so I knew how to eat and not look like a fool. I think our server noticed my nervousness and made sure she told us how to do everything. A few small notes, since I know I am getting kind of long-winded here. The cheese sauce appetizer was much different than I expected. I didn't expect the cheese to taste good with apples, but the sharpness of the cheese played off the sweetness of the apple nicely. (Wow, I sound like a restaruant critic there!) Another thing, I knew we had to cook our own meat, but I had no clue how that was going to work. Until the server came over and lit the giant vat of oil that was sitting on the table. I'm sure there were other spices, or something in the vat, I just don't know what they were. I know I over cooked some of my meat pieces, but since it was so dark I couldn't tell by looking at it whether it was cooked enough or not. I wasn't taking any chances. As I've mentioned before, I am very paranoid about under-cooked food.

The best part, or at least close to it, was dessert. There is nothing like a pot of chocolate to make me happy. As a bonus it comes out with a liqueur on it that they light on fire, then you can roast some marshmallows over the flame. I don't remember the last time I had roasted marshmallows, but these were perfect. I had just the right amount of burnt marshmallow on it to hold the shape while the center was a gooey mess. Perfect!

I should mention that this whole evening wouldn't have been possible with out Jenn's sister and boyfriend watching the kids at their place and buying us a gift certificate in the first place. Thanks Guys!

Oh, so today was spent doing some clean up, mostly by Jenn, and some relaxing. And walking the dog a couple of times.

I'm glad I have tomorrow off to rest. How was your weekend?

Agony and Ecstasy

Agony: I go back to work tomorrow. My vacation is over. If there is a way to ruin a Saturday more than having it be the end of vacation, I don't know what it is. (I do know how to make a clumsy sentence though). These two weeks flew went by much more quickly than I thought they would. I've been off because the kids had no camp or day care options leading up to school that just started this past Thursday. I thought it was going to go by slowly, with much whining, fighting and complaining. I was wrong. About the time part, that is, there was much whining, complaining and fighting. Actually, more than I thought there would be.

So, yeah, I go back to work. Back to the grind. Yipee. Yay. Hurmph.

Ecstasy: I got my AirPort Express to work. After much searching, message board reading and complaining (on my part this time) I got my AirPort to play nice with my non-Apple computer and router. Now I can stream the music that is on iTunes on our computer upstairs to the stereo downstairs. As an added bonus, I can control iTunes from my iPod Touch anywhere in the house. It is the ultimate dream of a lazy-ass music lover! (I sound like a commercial. Hey Apple, if you like the plug feel free to send me free stuff. Just e-mail me. The button is over on the right. Thanks!)

So that is my Saturday so far. I'm not sure what to do for the rest of it. What are you doing today?

Dinos and Airplanes, oh my!

We had an exciting weekend. I guess that is the way it should be when it is the last weekend before schools starts. For the kids, not me.

Saturday my son and I went to Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience. It was really neat! I was a little worried about it for a few reasons. 1). It was downtown at the United Center, and I had to get there on my own. I'm not good at getting around in the city and I get very stressed. Luckily, it is right of the expressway. Phew! 2). I knew it was going to be loud. My son does not like loud noises. At all. He was fine, though. He just covered his ears.

They really did a great job with the show. There was a paleontologist on stage, I forgot his name, who told the story of the dinosaurs as each new period was discussed. The actor was very good. It was like he was sitting down with you telling you a story. Very personable, but at the same time, very informative.

Obviously, the dinosaurs were the main attraction. They had a good variety; Utahraptors, Stegasaurus, Brachiosarus, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The smaller dinos had people inside controlling the puppets. You could see their feet, but you hardly noticed. They really had the movements down. They were very life-like. Well, as far as we know.

The very large dinos were operated a little differently. I could see a capsule, for lack of a better term, underneath where someone was sitting. I know that is how they moved the puppet around, but I'm not sure how they controlled the head, arm and tail movements. Unless there were controls in the capsule to do that. Either way, it was a lot of fun.

I forgot my camera in the car. (I'm still very annoyed by that). Here are a few cell phone shots.


Pretty bad, huh? I had to share, though.

Sunday we went to see the Chicago Air and Water Show. We really only saw the air show portion but I had to give you the full name. I think it is a law or something. We didn't go down to the lakefront since it is always a mob of people. Usually we go a little farther north, you can still see everything, and you won't step on someone's torso if you move around a little.

This year, though, we went to Jenn's sister-in-law's place and went on the roof. While it wasn't really close, we could still see plenty. Not to mention we had easy access to a private bathroom. Plus, like I mentioned before, our kids don't like loud noises. Being further away from the jets made that much more tolerable. Except when they flew right over us, which they did several times.

We didn't get down there until about 2 o'clock, so we missed some airplanes, but we did get to see the Blue Angels, and a few other jets. I always like to see the B-2 bomber because it looks like something Batman would fly, but we missed it. We saw it last year though.




I like this shot since you can read the "US Navy" under the wings. I had to zoom in on Photoshop to get it to show up since my camera only had a 3x zoom. They were closer than this picture makes it look.



Here was three different airplanes from different eras. They kept buzzing us as an F-22 Raptor was over the lakefront.



Here they are together as they leave to go home. Wherever that was.

It was a fun day. The kids got bored after awhile so it was good we were at a place they could go inside and mellow out. Or, just go up and down the stairs multiple times. For no apparent reason.

They were pooped by the end of the night, but my son had problems going to sleep. He was afraid of having a dream about tornadoes. I told him to think about the Blue Angels flying around instead. It didn't work. He came back to tell me that he was thinking about the Blue Angels, but the pilots were dinosaurs. How do you fix that one?

I have a few more pictures over at Flickr if you want to check them out.

Today? Most of today was spent nursing a monster headache. Then swimming lessons for the kids and some last minute school supply shopping. Exciting, I know.

Quick weekend recap

It was a busy weekend. Saturday I took my son to Walking With Dinosaurs while my wife took our daughter shopping, and to Build-a-Bear. Much fun was had by all. I'm mad at myself, though. I forgot my camera in the car. Argh! I took some pictures with my cell phone. I'll see if anything looks good enough to post.

Today we went to Jenn's sister's house to watch the air show. I did remember my camera this time! Okay, Jenn did, I can admit that. I will post some of those tomorrow.

Now I'm watching some show about repo men. It does not look like a fun job!

How was your weekend?