We just finished up watching The Aviator about Howard Hughes. Good movie. Lots of stuff I didn't know. Rent it, but make sure you have the time to watch it. It is three hours long. We watched two hours of it last night (Monday), and the remaining hour tonight.

We saw this piece of work at the zoo on Memorial Day.

An excerpt from an e-mail from my sister regarding my nephew Shawn:

He talks about you often - sometimes just out of the blue like when he said "Can we go to Chicago & ride the trains with Uncle Brad?".

Awwww……

Sheri claims she does not like ham.

Every time we eat a HoneyBaked ham, though, she says "I don't like ham, but I like this."

Today when she said it I asked her if maybe she likes ham, but she just doesn't like bad ham. When she thinks of ham she thinks of an overly salty dried out grisly piece of meat that has been left in a buffet chafing dish too long. She thought about it for a minute and then, I think, somewhat agreed.

She has had two whole (unusual for her) ham sandwiches since yesterday evening, and while we were out this afternoon she kept talking about getting home so she could make another sandwich. I guess she likes ham now.

Something I forgot to mention. The trunk that I picked up at the bike shop on Friday is expandable. There is a zipper that unzips and the main storage compartment almost doubles in size.

I was going back and forth on if I should get that one or just the normal one. I was thinking that I really only needed it for a few small things: wallet, cell phone, garage door opener, etc. But in the end I decide it was better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

Anyway, when we left the house Sheri was a little cool so she wore a jersey jacket. By the time we got to the dog park the sun was out, we had exercised a little bit, and Sheri was too warm for her jacket. We unzipped the expansion zipper and her coat fit in perfectly! It still had room for a few more things. I love it. I highly recommend a trunk. It makes it very convenient.

This is the expandable one I got for $39.99:



And this is the regular non-expandable one I was also considering for $27.99:

I didn't take my GPS on our bike trip, and I don't have the bike computer yet, but the best I can figure is that we rode about 9 miles today, and it was a lot of fun!

I topped off the air pressure in our tires before we left to about 60 psi. Sheri filled up both of our water bottles with water and ice and put them in their cages.

Sheri has only rode about a mile or so before this morning and has never had a bike with more than one gear before, so the first mile or so we rode through some residential streets just getting her used to shifting and when to up-shift and down-shift.

The trails in the forest preserve are mostly crushed limestone screenings. It feels different riding on this compared to paved roads, so we spent a little time going slow to get her used to that feeling and finding out how fast she can take sharp turns without the tires skidding out from under her.

We stopped for a drink and a few pictures after about 2.5 miles.





We kept riding north until we got to the dog park. We sat on the bench right in front of the gate where the dogs enter and leave the dog area so we could say hi to all of them. We also had our breakfast here: we split a Toasted Nuts and Cranberry Luna Bar and drank some more water. The sun felt good and we enjoyed watching the dogs so we sat there for about 20 minutes.



The dog park is on the northish side of the forest preserve and there was just a little bit more bike trail to the north of us so we thought we would continue north to see what was there. When we got to the end of the forest preserve the trail kept continuing along a busy road. About two miles down the road is a Dominick's grocery store with a Starbucks inside. We thought we would ride there, have a coffee break, and then backtrack home.

At one point Sheri shifted funny and threw her chain. Fortunately I was able to put it back on without any tools. It only took a minute.



The two miles there are mostly uphill. It was tiring, and we could have made it, but the sky started looking threatening, so we decided to turn around about halfway there and go home. The air started to feel different and cooler.

We stopped a few more times on the way home to because our thighs we getting sore, especially after climbing hills. You can't really see it in this picture but Sheri has a lot of color in her face:





We got home without getting rained on. We sat down for a bit and each had a HoneyBaked ham sandwich and a couple glasses of iced tea. I am going to take a shower now and then we are going to run some errands.

My back has been giving me problems for about the last two months. The last few bike rides I took my back would be hurting pretty good, which seemed weird since it doesn't seem like an activity that would be especially stressful on your back, even if it has been sensitive.

I had my handle bars in their highest position. Before this ride I lowered them, which also shifts them forward a little bit too, and my back did fine. It started hurting just near the very end of our ride, when we were just a few minutes from home.

We are getting ready to take an early-morning bike ride through the nearby forest preserve to the dog park!

You can tell when I am trying to put off doing something, like cut the grass, when I make post after post after post after…

I am going to cut the grass before the rain is supposed to get here at noon.

Then after I shower up I think I am going to pick up a HoneyBaked ham for the holiday weekend.

Last fall Tim and Lisa dropped Shawn and Dauber off with us, and then went into Chicago to get a hotel room and spend the weekend seeing the Christmas lights. As thanks they gave us a HoneyBaked gift certificate. I have been saving it for a special occasion, but that just meant that it was hanging under a magnet on the fridge. I thought a nice three-day weekend would give us plenty of ham-eating opportunities.

I actually planned on getting it last night, but I ended up going out to a buffet for lunch with my boss, and I knew I wasn't going to eat much for dinner, so I decided just to wait until today to pick it up. My reasoning: there is a small chance that the retail store would have received a fresh shipment of hams between yesterday after work and today when I go to pick it up, and therefore might get a fresher ham. Probably not, but oh well, that's the way my mind works.

Thanks for being so thoughtful Tim and Lisa!

(The Blogger.com spelling checker suggested "henpecked" as a replacement for "HoneyBaked". Hmmm, HenPecked Ham?)

Important!

There is an updated version of the excellant free Ad-Aware anti-spyware program now available on-line. We run it daily both at home and work.

1. Click this link.

2. Click the "Download Now" link on the page that opens.

3. Click the "Run" button on the dialog box that appears, and then follow any on-screen questions that appear.

If you have an earlier version of Ad-Aware it will ask you if you want to uninstall it. Answer yes.

Mom and Lisa both liked the picture of Sheri and I at the Cubs' game and asked for a copy.

So first I sent them a link to the original 1,600 x 1,200 high-resolution copy of the image so they could print it out any way they liked.

After I did that I had the better idea of sending the image via the Internet to our local Wal-Mart store's photo department. I did that, it just takes a couple of minutes, and then I was going to pick them up this weekend and mail them to Toledo.

Then I had an even better idea: I sent the image via the Internet to their local Wal-Mart's photo department! It worked great. I just called Mom and told her that she could pick up the prints at their store after 10 AM yesterday. She showed up and they were waiting for her. No hassle.

We bought a cheapy frame at Wal-Mart last night and I am going to take one of the prints to work. I don't have any pictures or personal stuff at work, so I need at least a picture of the two of us on my desk.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I took the picture of the two of us, not someone else. You can see my arm extending out of the left side of the photo.

I stopped after work to buy the bike computer I wanted, but I guess it is a newer model and they don't have it in stock yet. I told myself I wasn't going to settle for a different model if they didn't have the one I wanted, so instead I got a trunk for my bike rack. It attaches with four Velcro straps to the cargo rack over my rear wheel. This is what it looks like:



I wanted it because there are several things I like to take with me when ever I go for a ride, and it is too much to shove in my pockets. With the trunk I can just dump it all in there. I like to take:

Garage door opener remote
House keys
Wallet (for my ID in case I am found unconscious)
Cell phone
Bike tool

When I got home I ordered the bike computer online from Amazon.com.

For my little ride today I strapped my GPS to the trunk so I could see how far I rode. I went 4.74 miles and my top speed was 21.9 mph. My average speed was 9 mph.

When I got home I found Sheri in bed and she told me she lost her job today. What kind of boss gives someone the axe on a Friday, and especially the Friday before a holiday weekend? I always thought the classy thing to do was wait until Monday to do that. Oh well. We will be OK.

I am going to pick up a Cat Eye Enduro 8 bike computer this weekend.

This was the usher for our section today. He didn't take guff from nobody. I think it was the combination of his slick shades and his cool pencil-thin moustache. When he took breaks he would remove his sunglasses, but when he returned to his post the shades went back on. His name is Warner.

I had a great day!

It started out with me riding in with Sheri on her normal train. She went to work and I went to Crepe Cliché. (Stupid stupid stupid name, but good food and coffee.) I had their breakfast crepe which had a lot of scrambled egg, cheddar cheese, bacon, and a little onion, and of course, a small triple Americano. They roast their own coffee beans on location and the coffee was very good. The view was also excellent. My table was directly overlooking the Chicago River and the Jackson Street drawbridge. The crepe was a great bargain at $3.89, and the Americano was also priced right at $1.69 plus $0.50 for the extra shot for a total of $2.19. It was a very substantial breakfast that turned out to be my main meal for the day. I sat and ate my crepe, sipped my coffee, and read my beloved Chicago Tribune for about an hour.

I was ready to start walking around the loop so I thought I would walk north on Wacker and visit one of my favorite stores; the Rand McNally map store. Well, it closed. Poop.

When I was working downtown I got to see the very start of the construction of a skyscraper, and I wanted to see how it turned out. I walked north on Wacker and took a right on Monroe. The building is on the north-east corner of that intersection. It is beautiful. The entire length of the lobby, which is an entire city block, is filled with 20-foot tall live bamboo! The beds that the bamboo are growing in is covered in small black stream rocks with small (1 foot tall) fountains of water scattered around about every ten feet. A very neat affect.

I kept walking east on Monroe and discovered a little gem. There are hardly any benches in the Loop to sit down and take a breather. There is a little landscaped garden on the north-east corner of Monroe and Wells with at least six benches. I didn’t stop in, but made a mental note for future excursions downtown.

I then remembered about a year ago when I was looking for a place that roasted their coffee locally that there was a place roughly near DePaul's Loop campus near Jackson and State, so I started heading in that direction.

I stopped and watched some demolition work for about ten minutes.

I wasn't finding any coffee place, so I called Sheri and had her Google the terms I could remember. After a couple minutes of looking she found the place and gave me the address.

Before I went to find the coffee place I happened along a really cool bookstore. It is the largest architecture bookstore in the world, and is called The Prairie Avenue Bookshop. They have been in business for 44 years, and in its current location for 11 years. You can click the picture to see the full-sized image of the interior of the store. Very nice. I could spend several hours hanging out in there.

I then continued on my quest for the coffee shop. It is called Intelligentsia Coffee, and it is outstanding! I, of course, had my now standard small triple Americano and read the Wall Street Journal. By this time it was a little after 11 AM, so I called Sheri and told her to meet me there since it was in the direction she had to walk anyways to get to the L line we needed to ride.

The reason for my day off was that my boss had two tickets to today's Cub's game that he couldn't use and gave them to me. I had been thinking about taking a day off just because I felt like I needed to, so this worked out perfectly. Sheri got to the coffee shop at around 11:30 AM and we continued on to take the Red Line north to Addison Avenue which is where Wrigley Field is.

Once we got there we had a little over an hour to kill before the game started at 1:20 PM. We found a Mexican restaurant that my boss recommended. I was still full from my breakfast so we split two appetizers and I had a Diet Coke. We split a skirt steak quesadilla and a chicken mole. They also had excellent chips and salsa on the table.

Sheri was concerned about the sun being in her eyes so we stopped and bought her an official Cub's ball cap. It looks very cute on her.

We made our way to the park and our seats. They were excellent. Section 208 which is in the dark purple area in the upper left of the diagram. You can click on the diagram for the full-sized image.

The seats were in the shade the whole game, so even though it was around 70º for the game, with the lake breeze blowing steadily on us it was actually pretty chilly. I am glad I didn’t wear shorts like a lot of people did, and that I had my jacket.

Unfortunately we lost to Colorado, 5-2.

We made our way back to the Loop on the extremely-crowded-with-Cub's-fans L. We got off at the Jackson Street station, walked west on Jackson and stopped in Intelligentsia Coffee again for a couple of iced coffees for the walk back to Union Station. At Union Station we split a large order of fries from Gold Coast Hot Dog, and I also had a char dog. That will probably be my dinner.

I am going to finish up this post, take a shower, and then we are going to watch White Noise.

This was in the Mexican restaurant before the game.












I thought this self-portrait turned out pretty good!


The bleachers you see on top of those buildings are not owned by the Cub's. People built the bleachers and then charge people to watch the game from them.


Everyone standing during the 7th inning stretch singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game. They always have a celebrity lead everyone in the song. Today it was just a local radio host.


This is from the L platform while we were waiting for the train back to the Loop. The place was packed. I'm glad I wasn't driving.


This woman was so drunk I don't even think she knew she was missing her shirt and bra. Sheri said I was only allowed to post one picture of her.

Sheri and I will be here tomorrow (Thursday) at 1:20 PM!
(Click the "Map" button in the upper-right corner of the window if you don't know what this historic landmark is.)

This was a really nice moment today. The kid in the picture was very retarded and seemed overwhelmed with the whole petting zoo. Sheri picked up a chicken and moved it towards the kid just as I snapped the picture. The dad looked at Sheri just after I took the picture to see who it was and he had a really touched look in his eye. The kid seemed more into the animals after petting the chicken.

The weather was just gorgeous today. Low 80's and breezy. Plenty of sunshine.

We went to Civil War Days at our local historical society. Lots more pictures to follow.



Amputated limbs at the field hospital after the battlefield re-enactment.






Sheri paid $2 to go in the petting zoo.

Friday
I cut the grass Friday night after work because I was concerned about rain over the weekend, plus Sheri's Mom is visiting this weekend.

Saturday
While Sheri was walking dogs this morning I did some chores around the house. I took out the glass storm door and installed the screen on the front door. Emptied the dishwasher. Went through the mail and paid a bill. Made some iced tea. Did a little house straightening up. Researched vacuum cleaners.

When Sheri got home we went to Loco Burrito for some lunch. I got two tacos, one chili relleno taco and one pastor taco. Sheri got a giant quesadilla and I ate about half of that.

After that we walked next door to the Wonder Bread outlet store and got a loaf of light wheat bread. We split a Twinkie two-pack for dessert.

Then we drove to Wal-Mart and bought our new vacuum, a gallon of skim milk, and some gum.

We went to the post office to mail a package to a friend of Sheri's, but at 4:00 PM the post office was closed.

We went home and I immediately put the vacuum together. It works great! Lots of suction. It really pulled the carpet pile up and seemed to be sucking up stuff that the old vacuum left behind. We even pulled out our bed and vacuumed under there.

Sheri's Mom got in around 5:30 PM and brought lots of treats with her. Cinnamon coated almonds. Anderson's sour dough bread. Rosemary and olive oil Triscits. Triple ginger ginger snap cookies. I sampled a little of everything and it pretty much took care of my appetite.

We decided to go to Noodles & Co for dinner. I still wasn't hungry so I just tried three of their chicken pot stickers and a Diet Coke. Pretty good. We decided not to walk around downtown, but instead go home and watch Life Aquatic with Bill Murray. (We did not watch it with Bill Murray. He was in the movie.) On the way home we stopped at the supermarket for tea bags.

Sheri's Mom brought a bunch of Sheri's sister's old clothes that she can't wear anymore. She wanted to try them all on when we got home to see which ones she wanted and which ones would go to Goodwill. I decided to take advantage of the break and go for my first bike ride in nice weather. It was great! I think I was riding for about 20 minutes. I used the LED headlight that I got for my birthday. It was very bright. I could see street signs reflecting brightly when I was over 100 feet away.

The movie was good. Subtle humor. It was similar in humor to The Royal Tenenbaums. I think the same director directed both movies, which would explain that. While I was watching it I thought it also seemed like British humor.

I took a shower because I got a little hot from the bike ride, and now I am in bed wrapping up this post, watching Saturday Night Live, getting ready to turn out the lights.

We are off to purchase a new vacuum. We are going to get the Eureka Boss 4870GZ. It is Consumer Reports number 2 rated vacuum.

The number 1 vacuum is a $300 Hoover, and this Eureka is less than half the price at $140. The main difference is that this one is not self propelled. It says it cleans just as good.

On the repair history chart Eureka is ranked number 3 behind only Kirby and Kenmore. Surprisingly Hoover is ranked 8 out of the 11 manufactures listed on reliability. They are just ahead of Dirt Devil. Our current vacuum is a Eureka and it has worked great for almost 9 years. In case you are interested, this is the reliability chart:

1 Kirby
2 Kenmore
3 Eureka
4 Riccar
5 Bissell
6 Panasonic
7 Oreck
8 Hoover
9 Dirt Devil
10 Sharp
11 Simplicity

These are all of the movies currently in our Blockbuster.com DVD queue:

Birth R

Life Aquatic R

White Noise PG13

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (The original 6-part BBC mini-series)

Aviator PG13

In Good Company PG13

Kinsey R

Elektra PG13

City of God R

4 Little Girls NR

Long Way Home NR

Bend It Like Beckham PG13

Hero PG13

Irreversible NR

Mother R

Open Water R

Station Agent R

De-Lovely [Special Edition] PG13

Trekkies 2 PG

Coffee and Cigarettes R

THX 1138: The George Lucas Director's Cut R

Spartan R

Secret Window PG13

SLC Punk R

Capturing the Friedmans NR

The Score R

Pianist R

Salesman NR

Into the Arms of Strangers PG

Gods & Generals PG13

Barfly R

Trainspotting [Director's Cut] R

Taxi Driver [Collector's Edition] R

Old School [Unrated WS] R

Hedwig and the Angry Inch R

Suspiria NR

Harold and Maude PG

Dahmer R

Super Troopers R

Man with the Movie Camera NR

Wonder Boys R

Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary PG

Hard Eight R

Rundown PG13

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead R

Touching The Void R

Bob le Flambeur [Subtitled]

Edges of the Lord R

Mean Creek R

Shadow of Fear PG13

La Dolce Vita

Malena R

Fellini Satyricon R

8 1/2 [Criterion Collection]

Man on Fire R

Thirteen R

Evil Dead [Special Edition] NR

Incredibles PG

Radio Days PG

Being Julia R

Closer R

Darkness NR

National Treasure PG

Slasher NR

Big Lebowski R

Alone in the Dark R

Auschwitz: The Inside Nazi State - Disc 1

Auschwitz: The Inside Nazi State - Disc 2

Bad Education R

Boogeyman PG13

Nomi Song

Beyond the Sea PG13

Undertow R

Jacket R

Be Cool PG13

Hitch PG13

Dolls NR

Primer PG13

Seed of Chucky [Unrated] NR

Cursed NR

This is a big weekend for Chicago sports. The Cubs play the White Sox today, Saturday, and Sunday. Probably about half of the city has left work early to go to the game or to go watch it in a sports bar. I have it playing on my radio at work.

In case you didn't know, Cubs fans hate the White Sox and their fans, and the White Sox fans hate the Cubs and their fans. It is a fun rivalry.

Also, in case you haven't been following, the White Sox are doing better than any other team this season so far. The Cubs are kind of sucking.

My weight log.


[click for larger image]

We got four new Goodyear tires for the van today. The front ones had almost no tread depth. We also had to get a new tie rod and a left front wheel bearing because they were damaged.

Trixie was such a good girl. We really wanted to take her home. She is a three year old shepard mix. Loved to play. Very attentive. Soft. Clean. Friendly.

These pics are for Mom and Dad to see how the beds we worked on late last summer made it through the winter.

The peonies are looking pretty healthy. The rabbits seem to be enjoying the hostas!