This morning we were getting ready to leave the house for our typical breakfast and reading time. I was not taking the laptop so we were not tied to Burger King, Panera, or Elan, and Sheri was in the mood for an Egg McMuffin, so that is where we were heading. I was thinking about what I was going to order. They do not have any caffeine free diet sodas, so it would have either been water or their decaf coffee. I am not crazy about their coffee, and especially their decaf coffee, but sipping on a hot cup of coffee sounded really good while I read the new book I am starting. I had an "a hah" moment and boiled water in our new electric kettle. While that was heating up I ground the coffee beans and poured that into our French press. While I was doing this I told Sheri to get the newspaper and start the car up. Through the magic of the electric kettle the water was boiling in less than two minutes. I poured the water into the press and grabbed a large travel coffee mug and took both into the car. By the time we got to the McDonalds I pushed the plunger down and poured the coffee into my mug and took it into the restaurant. I could enjoy my own freshly brewed-only-seconds-ago coffee and not have to drink their swill.

After breakfast we went to Whole Foods to pick up a few things. We ended up with a couple different raw-milk cheeses (a cheddar and an emmental), a pound of Intelligentsia Black Cat blend espresso coffee beans, and a frozen pizza.

It was also sample-Saturday so we almost had a meal just on samples. Lots of good fruit, cod, cheeses, dips, baked goods, olives, chicken, Asian slaw, and other stuff I can't remember.

As we were checking-out I noticed the masseuse in the dining area and decided I wanted one. It has been years since I have had a massage, and with my back being sore all last week it sounded especially good. It was just a chair massage and it was only 15 minutes, but it felt really good. Because you have to leave your clothes on (well there was no sign saying I had to leave them on, but…) she can't manipulate the deep muscles as effectively through fabric as she can with oiled fingers on skin. But it was still wonderful. It was the typical $1 per minute.

We also stopped at Trader Joes to get a few things that were overpriced at Whole Foods.

We came home and both took and unplanned and unexpected hard deep nap for at least a couple hours. I think it was the prior week still catching up with us.

When I woke up I went downstairs and made a batch of hummus for dinner.

We are getting ready to watch Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Sheri has been giddy to watch it ever since we were notified that Blockbuster was shipping it from our queue a couple days ago.

I learned two Devo facts tonight that amazed me.

1. They are from Akron, OH. (I guess I shouldn't be surprised. A lot of good things have come from there.)
2. They started in 1973. (I wouldn't have guessed nearly that early.)

Three of the founding members were students at Kent State when the National Guard shootings happened. (Not amazing, just interesting.)

Their Freedom of Choice album (1980) was the second album I ever bought. My first album was Queen's News of the World (1977).

Last weekend I was flipping through the channels and stopped on some cooking show on PBS with a title like "Easy Everyday Cooking" or something like that. They would rotate through about a half dozen different chefs. Each chef would have five minutes or so to prepare one dish.

The one that caught my attention were meringue cookies. There were only five ingredients and it took a matter of minutes to go from cracking eggs to sliding the cookie sheet in the oven. We didn't have cream of tartar or vanilla, so we picked that up last weekend.

Tonight after work and before we watched a movie the two of us whipped up a batch meringue cookies and they were delicious! Super easy.

Into the mixing bowl I added:

Two egg whites
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

I turned the mixer on high and whipped until I just started to get firm peaks. (That sounds dirty.) Then I had Sheri add one tablespoon at a time:

¾ cups sugar

When she was done with that I added:

1 teaspoon vanilla

That's it!

I spooned out dollops of the mixture onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and then baked them at 300 degrees for about 25 to 30 minutes. When they come out of the oven they are soft, but after they cool they get a really nice crunchy texture. They literally melt in your mouth.

We are going to experiment with less sugar. Maybe we will try only a ½ cup of sugar next time. It is tough to tell from the pictures but they turned out with a beautiful light brown/blonde color.

I was trying out some new frame styles last weekend and had Sheri take some pictures. Any favorites? Any ones that are absolutely no way?

This morning when I bear-hugged Sheri from the toilet and carried her to the hallway her arms were forced out because my arms were under hers. They got in the way when I carried her through the doorway and I was worried that I bruised or cut her elbows or triceps.

This evening I asked her if she had any injuries there. She did not, but she couldn't visualize how I could have carried her in such a way that would injure just her elbows. I put her in a bear-hug like I did in the morning, told her to go limp, and intended to carry her through the doorway. She is small in size. Her weight is in the 25th percentile for women, that is, 75% of all women are heavier than she is. (You can look up the statistics for yourself, but I am not telling you her weight.) This morning I picked her up just like she was a three year old. Didn't even think about it.

When I tried this evening I could pick her up, but it seemed like it took three or four times as much effort to pick her up and I struggled a bit. I couldn't just hoist her up and go like I did this morning. Then it hit me that it was the adrenaline coursing through my body that made her weight seem inconsequential. I have heard stories like that, but couldn't really picture what that would feel like. In the heat of the moment it didn't seem to take any more effort to move her than it would to take a bag of mulch out of the trunk in the summer. I guess it is comforting to know you have that reserve power boost you can use in emergencies.

I am exhausted and traumatized.

I found Sheri this morning unresponsive, eyes wide open, pupils dilated, and her whole body twitching. I called 911. They had me move her to a safe place and lay her on her side. While I was moving her she asked what was happening and where was she. By the time I got her to the floor she was unresponsive again. She does not recall that conversation.

I got back on the phone with 911. She asked a few more questions. I told her the emergency squad was here and I hung up.

Sheri was conscious by this point, could hear me on the phone and was calling out for me. I sat with her and held her hand while the paramedics where getting their gear and coming in the house. She was dripping with perspiration.

They checked her blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, and I think a couple other things. It all checked out normal. She was feeling normal. They said they could take her to the hospital, I could take her, or we could call our family doctor and see what he advised. We decided to call our family doctor, who we love, and go from there. Sheri was still laying on the floor, and the paramedics wanted to check her blood pressure while she was standing up before they left. He could not get a reading and she started to feel faint, flushed, and get tunnel vision again. She was getting transported to the hospital.

I was keeping it together pretty good. I can do that when I have a job to do. While they were getting ready to move her I thought to call my boss and tell him I probably wasn't going to make it to work today. I started to lose it on the phone. I got out what I had to say and heard him say don't come in and then I hung up.

Once they got her in the truck they sat there for maybe 10 minutes getting her ready for the ride. Fortunately I remembered the one paramedic telling me it would take them a while to get things wrapped up so I had some time to get ready. While the truck was just sitting there in front of the house my mind started working too much and I didn't know what was going on in there. I was going to go knock, but I remembered they said it was going to take a bit. I couldn't do anything anyways if something bad happened. I also got panicked as I was following them in the car because they were not going fast enough. "What is wrong? Why aren't they going faster? Did something happen that means it wasn't an emergency anymore?" I turned the radio up and tried to sing and try to keep things together. I let things get to me a little bit right before I got to the hospital, but I pulled it together by the time I got there.

I thought about calling the Moms but decided against it because there was nothing they could do and I didn't have any answers yet. It would have put them through needless agonizing. I probably would not have had the most comforting voice either.

They had a one liter bag of saline dripping into her FAST. The arm it was going into was cold from all of the room temperature solution filling it up. One of the first things they suspected might have been at least a contributing factor was dehydration. She only had an iced coffee and half a glass of diet soda yesterday.

They did some blood work, an EKG, and a CAT scan. All came back negative. The doctor came in to tell her the good news and discharge her. "Any more questions?" "Where is the bathroom?" "Right around the corner." She stood up, and while the doctor was tying the back of her gown she started to get tunnel vision, flushed, light headed, and dizzy. Back down.

He decided to let another liter of saline drip into her. She tried over the next 30 minutes to either stand up or simply sit up several times. Each time the same reaction.

After a while she gave up and fell asleep. I think she was out for maybe an hour. By noon she was still asleep and I had not eaten or drank anything all day. I snuck down to the coffee shop in the hospital and had a pre-packaged chef's salad and a diet cola. I also checked the two messages we had on our voice mail and bought another news paper. By the time I got back to the room the nurse was there filling out the discharge papers. She must have came in minutes after I left. Sheri had successfully stood up and even bent over to pick up the shoes I brought for her. No dizzy. She looked and sounded good. The extra fluid and the rest were very helpful.

Right before we got home I started to let the trauma of the morning fully hit me. I didn't have it together until after I had been in the house for maybe five minutes.

Sheri is also exhausted and has been sleeping. I am tired but too restless or something to sleep. Maybe getting this out of me and written down will help. I just can't get the image of how I found her out of my head. I think that is the worst part. I also have a headache which doesn't help.

I want her to get in to see our family doctor as soon as possible for a follow-up. I think she said she is going to call tomorrow.

I got a lot done tonight. I came home, changed clothes, and then ironed a pair of work pants that came out of the drier this weekend. Then I tried ironing a shirt that I didn't want to send to the cleaners. I did an OK job, but I still left some wrinkles in it. Sheri had to follow up to get it wearable.

My back was a little achy so I laid on the bed for a bit. After I was rested up I went downstairs for some dinner. I just picked. I had some whole wheat bread that Sheri got from Great Harvest today. The last half slice of cold pizza left over from the weekend. I also had some cereal, and the last of the Jamaican beef patties we had in the freezer.

Then we sat in the family room for a bit and watched TV. I fell asleep for probably about 30 minutes.

Then I went up to the office and crossed a few yucky things off of my to-do list.

1. Paid some bills, sorted through the mail, and updated the check register.

2. Filled out the rebate form for a flash drive I get for free for buying TurboTax this weekend.

3. Re-created an invoice for the freelance work I did late last year.

4. Installed TurboTax, downloaded the state program, and downloaded all of the available updates.

5. Started our 2005 tax form. I stopped about half way through creating my Schedule C. I have to go dig up how much I paid for business insurance last year. At 9:30 PM on a school night I didn't feel up to sorting through my business documents folder. It will have to wait until tomorrow night.

I am going to brush my teeth and go to bed. Tomorrow will be another glorious day of various GIS activities. Top on my list is to consolidate all of our concurrent-use licenses to one server. Right now we have licenses in a few different places.

This is our tentative errand list for this afternoon:

1. Office Depot
- TurboTax Premiere
- Cheapie keyboard for plugging into laptop

2. WalMart
- Electric kettle (The French press is my new preferred method to make coffee. This will be faster than using a stove-top kettle. It will also be much cooler to use in the summer time.)


3. Wonder Bread Store
- Loaf of light bread

4. Menard's
- Drill-powered water pump. I want to have this on hand for emergencies. Nothing like getting some water in your basement to make you think ahead.



5. Bed Bath and Beyond
- Electric kettle Found a better one at WalMart mentioned above.
- Look at Venta humidifiers/air cleaners.

6. Meijer
- Lime juice (Need to keep on hand for my award winning guacamole.)
- Advil and/or Tylenol
- Eggs
- Drinking straws

7. Blockbuster
- Pick up a movie for tonight or tomorrow.

8. Snack/lunch at Bacci Pizza, Taco Bell, or Zia Pizzeria. Depends how we feel.

Our tentative plan for tomorrow is:

1. The mall
- To look for dress shirts, a neck tie or two.

2. Kohl's
- Shirts and ties

3. Trader Joe's
- Soy protein
- Cheese(?)

4. Whole Foods
- Cheese(?)

After our skating night at the church parking lot we came home and made Devonshire sandwiches.

For the Welsh rarebit sauce I cheated and started with a can of Campbell's cheddar cheese soup. To that I added ½ cup of fat free sour cream, ½ teaspoon of dry mustard powder, a few teaspoons of Worcestershire, and some fresh ground black pepper.

I put a piece of toast on a plate and added two strips of turkey bacon. On top of that I added some thinly sliced turkey that I gently warmed in the same pan I cooked the bacon. I added a few slices of tomato, put the top piece of toast on the sandwich, and then ladled the sauce over the entire sandwich. We ate them with a fork and steak knife.

They taste much better than they photograph.

I made a really good batch of turkey salad with the last of the turkey. I ran out of mayonnaise which was good because I discovered a secret ingredient. I had some Woeber's horseradish sauce in the fridge so I used that to make up for the rest of the mayo I needed. It gave the turkey salad a really nice tang. I also added a teaspoon of dry mustard powder which is also delicious.

I have some posts to catch up on.

Tuesday after work Sheri and I went to a local church's parking lot with our skates. Sheri did great and had fun. I am still so shaky that the uneven surface of the parking lot and the salt chunks made me so nervous that I could not relax enough. As a result I was very stiff. When I would run over a little pebble-sized piece of salt it would stop my skate and make me tense up more. I guess until I am more confident I should stay on very smooth surfaces like the basement or roller rinks.

Sheri had a good time and looked really good. She could lap the whole parking lot in what seemed like just a few seconds.

She wasn't going to where her helmet but I talked her into it. If you fall backwards there is nothing to catch you. Your neck might not be strong enough to stop your 12 pound melon, which has already built up speed from falling five feet or so, from cracking on the pavement. (Yeah, I wanted it to be graphic so you will where your helmet too.) She also wore her full accouterment of pads (knee, elbow, and wrist). I don't have any pads yet, so I just wore some lined leather work gloves (it was cold and provided protection) and my helmet.

Her are some pictures of our evening.







Sheri's really cool high-quality skates.




My cheapie $9 skates.

One of the things on my wish list for my birthday last year was a French coffee press. I heard people rave about them. At the time I was really digging my mocha pot. The first time I tried it I think I put too much water in, and ground the beans too coarsely. It was much too weak for me. Since I was getting good results with the mocha pot I didn't use the press since then.

Tonight I wanted some coffee but didn't want to go to all the bother of firing up the espresso machine or dirtying up the mocha pot. I put a pot of boiling water on the stove, got out the French press, and ground 7 tables spoons of beans so that it looked about what pre-ground Folgers-type coffee looks like, but with a few larger pieces mixed in.

I poured 2 cups of the hot water (just off boil) into the press and stirred in the ground coffee. I let it steep for about 4 minutes and then pressed the grounds to the bottom. The result? Perfect!

Sheri had some too and was very impressed. She has a mental hang-up that hot coffee gives her an upset stomach, and that it is always bitter and too acidic. That is why she always orders iced coffee. The coffee tonight did not upset her stomach and she really liked it.

My boss is a big camper and says a French press is great for camping. You can easily have your gourmet quality coffee out in the wilderness.

Three day weekend starts tomorrow.

I was assigned a big project at work that I am looking forward too and can't wait to start working on it. I already did some preliminary data diagramming today. Further details to be sent to the mail list.

My lower back has been hurting a lot because of two days in a row of trying to skate.

When we got home today from our morning activities we both went down to the basement with our new skates. Sheri has never been on rollerblades, besides once or twice on carpeted floors in sporting goods stores, but she has been ice skating a few times in the last couple of months.

So this was her first time testing out rollerblades on a fast smooth floor. She looked really good and natural. Nice fluid moves. She said it felt pretty good too.

I feel like I have improved too. Both since the last time I was practicing, and in the 45 minutes that we were down there today. Sheri said I looked more at ease and relaxed; not so stiff. I was pushing off of alternating feet a little bit too and building my speed up. It was a little difficult to really get a feel for it though because just as I got a couple of good push-offs for speed I would have to stop because I ran out of basement.

I am feeling really good and confident about this. I don't think it is out of the question that I could actually learn how to skate now.

There is a big and obvious difference in Sheri's good skates and my cheapos. Here skates make no noise at all when she is moving. I skated away from Sheri to the other side of the basement. I turned around to say something to her and expected her to be 100 feet away. Instead she was right behind me. The wheels on my skates make noise as I roll and are not as smooth. I wouldn't be able to sneak up on her.

When I first started practicing just about every part of my body would tense up and I would my whole body would feel exhausted afterwards from all that tension. Today I mostly felt it in the small of my back, but surprisingly it is not a bad pain like I might get if I improperly lifted something heavy. It is the kind of tired you get after lifting weights are doing a good workout. I think that is a good sign. My body is constantly adjusting to keep me upright which is exercising more muscles than just walking.

I need to go take a shower now. I think I got my 20 minutes of exercise in the 45 minutes we were down there, and burned off a good portion of my lunch which I am excited to write about later.

Oh yeah, I had today off for Lincoln's Birthday, and I will have next Monday off too for President's Day.

For Sheri's birthday me and her Mom went in on a really nice pair of K2 inline skates and a set of knee, elbow, and wrist pads. The sporting goods store I went to was having a big sale on everything, and all skates were marked down. I think it was like 30% or 40%, but I forget exactly. It was really good though.

After I picked out her skates I thought I would look at men's skates just for the heck of it. I have never been able to do anything like skating, water skiing, etc. No way would I spend the kind of money that a good pair of skates cost for me because the chances are big that I would never be able to use them.

Anyway, I was looking at the men's skates and they had a brand I never heard that was normally about $50 or $60, and they had a clearance sticker that said something like $20. Cool! If I bought these and it turned out that I just don't have the balance for skating I wouldn't feel bad about the $20. I went to look for my size, 13, but the largest they had in stock was 12, so I thought for $20 I should at least try them on. They were snug, but not unbearable.

So I decided for $20 I could try to teach myself to skate, and if I eventually did then I wouldn't feel bad about buying a real pair of skates to go skating with Sheri.

When I went to check out they rang up for only $9!

I have been keeping them in the family room, and every now and then I will strap them on and go practice on the tile floor in the kitchen. I started out just standing in place. Then after getting comfortable with that I would shuffle my feet back and forth just to get the feel for how my center of gravity responded. Sheri did some research on-line and found another tip to get people used to skates, and that is just to jump in place. The idea is that you can't jump if you are stiff, which is what the natural reaction to being on skates for the first time, so jumping forces you to loosen up. I did that for a few times and I think it helped.

Next I started to shuffle back and forth in the kitchen. After doing that for a few nights in a row I started feeling a little more steady, but I still wasn't "skating".

The last time I was on the skates I started feeling comfortable enough to transfer my weight forward onto one skate and roll a few feet, and then kind of push off from that foot to the other one. Then I get unsteady, stop, and try it again.

At first the grout lines in the kitchen I think actually helped me because it slowed me down a bit. After my last time in the kitchen I think the grout lines are in my way now because it adds too much resistance when I am trying to roll more than a foot or two.

I am a long way from strapping on some skates and skating through the park with Sheri, but I am going to keep at it and maybe one day we will be able to spend an afternoon skating together.

I think the next time I am ready for a practice session I will go down to the basement where it is smooth and I can roll the length of the house.

Miracle Ingredient Alert!

There is a natural sweetener called xylitol. It is as sweet as sugar but only has 40% of the calories, and the calories that it does have are absorbed by your body very slowly. As a result it has a low glycemic index. It won't spike your blood sugar way up and then let you crash 30 minutes later. It also does not cause tooth decay.

But none of the above is what makes it a miracle ingredient. It has amazing benefits in preventing tooth decay. Dentists are now starting to recommend chewing at least five pieces of xylitol-sweetened gum per day for four or five minutes at a time.

In long term studies not only did the xylitol have protective effects during the study, it had protective effects years after the study had ended. It also has an anticarcinogenic effect from the reduced bacteria population in the mouth.

This is a nice summary of its dental benefits from Wikipedia:

Xylitol is a toothfriendly sugar substitute. In addition to discouraging tooth decay by replacing dietary sugars, xylitol may actively aid in repairing minor cavities caused by dental caries. Recent research confirms a plaque-reducing effect and suggests that the compound, having some chemical properties similar to sucrose, attracts and then "starves" harmful micro-organisms, allowing the mouth to remineralize damaged teeth with less interruption. (However, this same effect also interferes with the yeast micro-organism and others, so xylitol is inappropriate in making bread, for instance.) The United States Army, acting on this data, will soon pack xylitol-sweetened gum in MREs (meals ready to eat).

It has also been shown to reduce ear infections!

Studies have shown that xylitol chewing gum can help prevent ear infections (acute otitis media); the act of chewing and swallowing assists with the disposal of earwax and clearing the middle ear, whilst the presence of xylitol prevents the growth of bacteria in the eustachian tubes which connect the nose and ear.

A few chewing gums have xylitol in them now. Trident was the first one to include it in 2004, but not all of the flavors. Orbit does too, but also not all of the flavors have it.

I am only going to buy gum that has xylitol in it from now on. I like to keep plenty of gum on hand at work to chew after meals and snacks and when I get there first thing in the morning to get the chocolate soy protein drink out of my mouth.

They also make xylitol sweetened mints that also provide dental benefits, although I have not seen these yet. You can also buy xylitol in bulk yourself and use it like you would sugar, except with yeast breads because it kills the yeast cells.

I think you can tell a lot about a person from how they place their order at a restaurant. I think that it is pretty safe to say that probably about 75% of the people that say "Give me the …" or "I'll take the…" are people that I would not want to be around. My impression is that these people are usually self-centered.

People that say "May I please have…" have a better chance of being more like the people I want to be around.

You can also tell a lot about a person by how they talk to wait staff. People that bark out commands, or that don't end a request with "please", or that don't say "thank you" when something is brought to them are probably not my peeps either.

I have not been able to post about things lately nearly as much as I want to. At my previous job when it was time for a mental break I would type up a little post or take a look at a few news sites. At my new job they take their "no personal Internet usage" policy very seriously. They have software that actively monitors your Internet and e-mail activity. If you go to a site that is on a black list or has certain key words a warning is sent to the security people, and then they send a wrist-slapping e-mail to you. Lots of good things pop into my head to write about, but when I get home writing usually doesn't get top priority. Lately writing has turned into a weekend thing.

I mentioned on Tuesday that Sheri was going to pick up a frozen HoKa turkey for us to pick on during our three-day weekend. It was frozen so she put it in the fridge on a plate to defrost.

This morning I woke up early and went to Meijer for a rack for the roasting pan. Yes, I am embarrassed to admit that even though I have two roasting pans (who knows, I might even have some more stashed away in the basement) I do not own a roasting rack.

I left the house while Sheri was still in bed. I was positive Meijer would have a simple roasting rack. They didn't. They had a roasting pan that came with a rack, but I wasn't going to spend $20 just to get the rack.

There is a Jewel grocery store on the way home, and I didn't expect to find one there, but I wanted to check. The turkey was on the expensive side and I didn't want to risk ruining the bottom half of the turkey by having it absorb too much of the drippings and get soggy. I thought the turkey would be fine roasting directly on the bottom of the roaster, but I didn't want to take any chances.

As I was pulling out of the Meijer parking lot I saw the Bed Bath & Beyond that was recently built on the other side of the road. The place was dead at 10:00 AM and someone jumped on me almost as soon as I walked in the door and directed me to the roasting rack department. It is non-stick and made by Farberware. Only $7.



I got home and preheated the oven to 325º, washed the rack, and washed the roasting pan. It was a little dusty from storage.

After putting the turkey in the rack I drizzled some olive oil on it and smeared it evenly on the bird with my hands. I generously ground fresh black pepper on it and then sprinkled Lawry's seasoned salt and garlic powder. I inserted the thermometer and had it in the oven by 10:50 AM.

It started filling the house with wonderful smells almost immediately. It was a 5.25 roast (I will explain later) and from everything I found on-line I expected it to take between 2 and 2.5 hours. It ended up taking over 3 hours to get to 170º. I think it was because the center was still near freezing when I put it in the oven.







It was a boneless roast, not a regular turkey. Somehow they remove all of the meat from the turkey and truss it up tightly in string and flash freeze it. It came out to about $5 a pound, but for a number of reasons I think it is totally worth it, and I don't think I will ever buy another kind of turkey.

First it wasn't as expensive as you might think because it was all meat. We didn't pay for bones, skin (just a little bit to protect the meat during cooking), fat, grizzle, giblets, gizzards, etc.

Secondly it was worth the little extra not to deal with the bones afterwards. It was also much easier to slice from a roast than off the bone.

Finally the meat itself was absolutely the best turkey I think I have ever had. (Even better than deep fried ones, albeit only by a little bit!) It was very moist and juicy which for a lot of people that is good enough. But this turkey had a delicate flavor I don't think I have tasted before. Buttery and nutty are adjectives that come to mind, but I am not sure that is entirely accurate. It was fantastic though.

I think it was better than just a breast because the dark meat adds extra flavor and moisture to the white meat. The texture of the meat was excellent as well. Kind of like the difference between how a piece of fresh fish and frozen fish flake apart.

The HoKa Turkey Farm is maybe a 45 minute drive west from our house. They buy all of their poults when they are one day old in the spring. At the end of season they start dressing them and flash freezing them to sell through the rest of the year. During this time you can go out and get a freshly dressed bird that has not been frozen. A coworker said you can even pick your own live bird and have them dress it while you wait. I definitely want to try that. The taste of fish caught the same day is so much better than frozen fish; I would have to think turkey would be the same way.

We had a little cabin fever from being in the house all day, so after we ate we decided to go to the café/restaurant we tried last weekend that serves my favorite coffee in the world, Intelligentsia. It is blended and roasted in small batches right in downtown Chicago. You can order their coffee from their website. Be warned though, if you try it once it will be difficult for you to go back to ordinary coffee.

Anyway, Sheri brought her book and I brought the laptop to catch up on some posts. We walked in and walked down to the lower level where the big comfy lounge chairs are. The main dining room is also downstairs. All of the tables where set with white linen. Some of the diners that were there had neckties on, and the wait-staff all were wearing black formal uniforms. This was definitely not the vibe when we where here last Saturday morning.

We both had on jeans. I had a t-shirt on and Sheri just had a sweatshirt. But with big gracious smiles that took us to the same seats we had last time. Then the owner stopped by and said they had two big parties booked for the evening that was going to swamp the kitchen. She apologized and said because of this they were not taking dinner orders from any other customers this evening, but they were going to bring out free hot and cold appetizers for us!

I was not going to order anything besides coffee anyway. I was still full from turkey. Sheri was planning on ordering an iced coffee and a small appetizer, like spinach dip. It worked out perfectly.

As I am writing this the one party is starting to stream in. Sheri thinks they are high school kids. They are all in tuxedos and strapless dresses and high heals. Sheri thinks they are precious and that it is their Valentines dance.

We have been here for about an hour, and will probably stay for at least another hour. After that we might go to Meijer for a few things, but mostly just to walk around, and then go home and watch some more Olympics, maybe a movie, and then Mad TV and Saturday Night Live.

A group of older people came in a little bit ago, and when they explained the kitchen situation they threw a stink, so they are serving them dinner.

We had a fun date night. As soon as I got home I changed clothes and then we went to Portillo's for dinner. It has been a long long time since we have had Portillo's. Several months. I had an Italian beef with hot peppers and Sheri had a hamburger. Should could only eat about 2/3 of it so I had the other 1/3 or her hamburger.

After that we went bowling together! It has been at least six years since I have bowled. It was a lot of fun. We bowled three games and it took us about and hour and 15 minutes. We are talking about maybe making it a weekly thing.

The average person burns 210 calories an hour bowling, so I would say an hour of bowling counts for our 20 to 30 minutes of exercise you are supposed to get per day.

I am going to take a shower and then I think we are both going to converge in bed and watch a little TV and maybe do a little reading.

I have two three-day weekends coming up. Nice. Sheri is going to pick up a frozen HoKa turkey tomorrow and get it defrosting in the fridge so it will be ready for roasting Saturday afternoon. Then we can pick on it all weekend, and make Devonshire sandwiches on Monday.

Wet basement update:

The hose that leads the water away from the house outside froze shut. The pump must have overheated from trying to pump against the ice cap and shut itself down. Unplugging the pump and plugging it back in must have reset the safety mechanism.

We brought the hose into the house and soaked it in hot water in the kitchen sink to melt the ice inside. The pump is turning on now about every five minutes while water that built up around the foundation from last Friday's rain trickles into our sump. We moved the hose outside to a position out of the shadows and into the sun to help keep it defrosted. We are really lucky we didn't get more water in the basement than we did.

We are both pooped now. Sheri went out and brought us some KFC for dinner. She is getting ready to settle in for the season finale of "Surface". I am going to catch up on news on the laptop.

Super Bowl ads in case you missed them.

I went back down in the basement to look at my water problem a little more. I said before that the sump was dry, but I thought I should lift the lid anyway just to check it out. Well that was the problem. The sump had water right up to the rim. It must have all come in Friday when we had rain all day, and then had Saturday and most of today to dry out. The sump gets a steady trickle of water during rain storms and the water is usually pretty clear, which explains why there wasn't any telltale stains. The water is really clear and didn't leave any sediment. When it stopped raining, the water stopped coming in and it just dried up there.

Sheri is going to take a cup and bail as much water as she can tomorrow from the sump to expose where the pump attaches to the PVC pipe that exits the house. When I get home I will detach the pipe from the pump and see what size the replacement pump needs to be, and then go to Home Depot and buy a new one. I will also check the hose clamp and anything else that is down there to see if they are in good repair or if I need to pick up new attaching hardware when I buy the new pump.

I feel a lot better knowing where the water came from. My worry was that I was going to have to hire an excavator to come in and dig up a broken pipe in the backyard or there was a major foundation flaw.

I checked the weather and we are not supposed to get rain for at least the next four days.

Once I have the new pump installed and I understand how everything attaches I think I will buy another pump to keep on hand as a spare. I can imagine the helpless feeling I would have if the pump failed during a rain storm late at night and no hardware stores were open to buy a new pump, and we just had to stand there and watch the water fill up the basement.

I was going to write about the nice day we had yesterday for Sheri's birthday weekend, and the great lunch we had today at a new restaurant we tried, but instead I am going to write about something else.

We went in the basement (because it is too cold to go outside) so Sheri could try out her new inline skates she got for her birthday, and we discovered a good amount of water along the back wall.

I would not classify it as "flooded" though, and I am not sure where it came from. Right now I would say there is probably only five gallons of standing water down there. There also wasn't that much stuff where the water is. There were some old family pictures from Sheri's family that probably got the worst of it. Everything else that got wet is either waterproof (plastic items) or it was just junk anyway.

I opened up the two vents down there and turned on the furnace fan to air it out, and I brought a box fan down to help evaporate the standing water.

So all in all very little to zero damage, but now I have to figure out where the water came in from. The sump is dry. I don't see any wet marks on the walls. The water heater area is dry, as is the furnace.

The water is away from the wall for the most part. The one thing that keeps going through my mind is that it came up through the drain in the middle of the floor. Maybe a drain pipe collapsed and when we had the heavy rain on Friday some of it bubbled in. Grrrr…..

I am going to change into my gym shorts and a t-shirt now and peddle off some of the birthday cake and other goodies I ate this weekend.

Yesterday I flew to Springfield for the 35th annual ACEC awards on a private turboprop jet. The smallest plane I have been on before yesterday was an airline's commuter plane between Washington Dulles and Baltimore. That plane was probably twice as big as the plane I was on yesterday. Yesterday's plane was a Beechcraft King Air 200.

We were scheduled to leave DuPage Airport at 8 AM. I didn't want to be the one holding up the show so I got there at 7:20 AM and was the first one there. We didn't use the main terminal. The company that houses and maintains their plane has their own facility. There is a half-circle driveway that goes right up to their front door and under an awning. I was told to just pull up under their and leave my keys in the car. Someone came after a while and pulled it into their private lot.



The next guy to show up was the head of their GIS department. He is an older guy, mid 60's, got his degree in mathematics, but has been in surveying and mapping for his whole career. He started in GIS 15 years ago before it became the rock star career it is today. We were chatting for a while in the lobby, and then our pilot showed up. We were only waiting on one other guy. He forgot something and had to turn around and go back home to get it. Once he showed up we walked through the back of the building, through the spotless hanger, onto the tarmac and into our plane.





The three of us were getting settled in the plane while the pilot did a pre-flight external walk-around check. One of the guys made a comment about me sitting in the cockpit. I picked up on that right away and asked if they didn't think the pilot would mind.

When the pilot got on board I asked his permission and he said no problem. It was a tight fit climbing over all of the avionics but I managed.

I just sat there fascinated as he did all of his pre-flight checks. My main concern was that I didn't accidentally bump a switch that I shouldn't and that I didn't distract him from doing his job. I was just grateful to be up there taking it all in. The check list is all electronic. A list of items to check pops up on the screen and he just goes down the list and clicks a button to mark it off as he verifies that item.

He told me to put on the set of noise cancelling headphones that were hanging next to my seat. We could talk to each other in the noisy cockpit without the need to raise our voices. I could also hear all of the radio traffic through the headphones. He fired up the starboard engine and then the port. He monitored their gauges for a few minutes, then he looked at the ground support person to verify the chocks were pulled away from the wheels and that it was safe to start moving. He released the parking brakes and we started to roll from the force of the idling engines. We pulled a few hundred feet away from the hanger and then he stopped and set the parking brakes again so he could do some more engine checks. He powered one engine up to almost full power for a few seconds, backed it down, and then did the other one. When he did this the whole plane was shaking pretty good. If I had a full cup of coffee I probably would have spilled some. Cool!



Everything checked out good so he called the tower and asked to be put in the queue. They told him to roll to a particular runway and how to get there. As we got to where they told him to go they said there were two inbound planes and that he would have to wait for just a couple minutes.

Once they landed and cleared the tarmac the tower called and said he was clear to go. He released the brakes and rolled to the center of the runway. He did a few last minute checks and then pushed the throttles all the way forward until the torque meters were registering almost 100%. I think they were right around 97% or 98%. The whole plane felt like it was hopping around and shaking. At this point I don't think I could have been smiling any harder. He released the brakes and we instantly jumped forward.

I am used to flying commercial jet liners and to using almost the entire runway to build up speed before the back wheels lift off the ground. It seemed like we were airborne after using up only about a quarter of the runway and it took just a few seconds. It was everything I could do to keep the fit of giddy laughing I felt inside from coming out.

I expected once we were in the air for a few minutes and leveled out he would just sit there and monitor gauges and look out the window. Nope. He was almost nonstop busy. It seemed we would leave one tower's airspace and enter another tower's airspace every five minutes! When that happened the tower giving up control would tell him what radio frequency the new tower was expecting him on. I didn't ask but I assume the one tower also electronically tells the next tower to expect us. He acknowledged that transmission and thanked them for their help, and then dialed to the next tower's frequency, announced his call letters, said good morning and I think said his elevation and bearing. He would then pick up a little pad of paper and a pen. The tower would answer back with a string of confusing numbers that at first made no sense what so ever, but by the end of the day started to make sense. He would write all of that down on the pad and then acknowledge it back to the tower.

They would tell him if they wanted him to maintain his elevation or climb higher and which waypoint he should be heading to. Now this is the part I thought was really cool. Every 59 days they get a new data card to update the plane's computers with every waypoint in the United States. A waypoint does not represent a physical feature on the ground. It is just a latitude and longitude point with a five character name. When the pilot files his flight plan it is from waypoint to waypoint. Once he is in the plane he just types in the waypoint and the plane navigates to it. From DuPage Airport to Springfield there were four or five way points. He types them all in ahead of time. Once we get to a way point the plane automatically changes course to point to the next waypoint. Aeronautical charts have all of these waypoints mapped out. It is just like planning a trip on the road. You have to figure out which route you want to take. Maybe the most direct route would be right through O'Hare airspace, but you might not want to deal with the traffic so you plan your route with waypoints that take you around O'Hare.

The tower told him when he gets to BOMER (a waypoint) they want him to be at 5,000 feet. At the time we were at 13,000 feet. He programmed that information into the computer and it calculated at what rate of descent we needed to fall so when we reached BOMER we were exactly at 5,000 feet.

Actually he didn't want to start descending at that point yet, so he typed some things in telling the computer when we were a certain number of miles from BOMER to begin the descent. When we reached that point the plane slightly nosed down and we started our descent. The only thing he had to do was back the engines down so we didn't speed up and overshoot our target. The computer calculates the rate of descent and indicates that on a little display. If he is not falling fast enough the needle is above a little mark, and if we are falling too fast the needle is below the mark. He just adjusts the engine speed so the needle is within the mark.

Landing while in the cockpit totally blew me away. When you are in the back of a plane looking out of a side window you don't really get a feel for how the plane is moving in space. You don't realize that you might be coming in a little sideways. I could feel as we twisted one way and then back the other way. Crabbed a little bit to one side and then back. Very neat feeling. When we were 100 feet above the ground a computer voice counted down our height above ground. "100 feet. 90 feet." I think when we got to 50 feet it just said the numbers. "50. 40. 30. 20. 10" Bump.

Once we were on the ground the tower told him to do a 180 (their exact words) and what runway exit to go to.

We got to the airport, got off the plane, and a hotel courtesy van was waiting for us. One of the things the flight company takes care of for you is ground transportation.

We got to the hotel ballroom early, so we just milled around for a while. I made few phone calls and bought some expensive gum.

The photographer got there and set up his gear. Every company/client that won an award got their picture taken with their award plaque and three of the heads of the ACEC. I got to hold the plaque for our picture.

Pictures were from 10 AM until 11 AM. From 11 AM until noon they told us to take our seats but nothing happened. No food was served and no one said anything. At noon the food started coming out and speakers started speaking. After a while they would call out the award category, who the engineering firm and the client were, and who was accepting the award. I got to go up in front of a room full of civil engineers and accept an award.

The food was pretty good. We started out with a nice plate of fresh salad greens. The main course was a big sized chicken breast that was pan fried with a light flour coating and then covered with a little cream sauce seasoned with garlic, a nice piece of broccoli raab, and a small serving of mashed potatoes that tasted like they were seasoned with garlic and butter milk. For dessert we had a small bowl of chocolate mousse.

The second the luncheon was over we darted out to the hotel desk to request the courtesy van back to the hanger.

I asked the pilot if he needed a copilot for the trip back, and he said of course he did.

This was my view looking back from the cockpit.











This did not turn out very well, but it is worth showing for a few things. You can see the plane icon right in the middle of the circle. That is us. We have radar on so you can see some of the clouds showing up as green smudges. The yellow letters NEWTT are a waypoint that we are heading to. The yellow line is our project course. The circles with the three little nubs coming off of them are airports. This was taken right as we are leaving DuPage airport, symbolized by DPA.



There are four computers on the plane and they all talk to each other and compare their readings back and forth. If two computers don't agree with each other on a reading they will highlight to bring it to the pilot's attention. For example every hour each airport broadcasts the barometric pressure at the airport. The pilot has to manually dial this in for the altimeter to work correctly. He purposely dialed the wrong pressure in on one of the computers and showed me how it balked at him telling him one of them wasn't right. Cool!

Every inch of mercury on the barometer is equal to 1,000 feet of altitude, so if he has the barometric pressure dialed in wrong, 29 inches of mercury versus 28 inches of mercury, his altitude will be off by 1,000 feet.

This is the DuPage Airport tower when we returned.



When we got back to the hanger our cars were lined up with the engines running waiting for us. The guy standing to the left of our cars is holding a carpet for us to step onto.

This is an interesting excerpt from a story I read to day about the current state of digital photography:

First, there's the astonishing collapse of the film camera market. By some tallies, 92 percent of all cameras sold are now digital. Big-name camera companies are either exiting the film business (Kodak, Nikon) or exiting the camera business altogether (Konica Minolta). Film photography is rapidly becoming a special-interest niche.

Next, there's the end of the megapixel race. "In compact cameras, I think that the megapixel race is pretty much over," says Chuck Westfall, director of media for Canon's camera marketing group. "Seven- and eight-megapixel cameras seem to be more than adequate. We can easily go up to a 13-by-19 print and see very, very clear detail."

OK, one quick story from today.

The pilot was explaining the cabin pressurization system to me.

He pointed to a dial with two hands in it. He explained that the little hand showed the p.s.i. of the compressor, and explained that that stood for pounds per square inch.

Then he said the larger hand showed p.s.i.d. which is pounds per square inch differential, and that was the difference between the cabin pressure and the outside pressure.

Finally he said there is also p.e.p.s.i. but didn't explain what that was, so I asked what that is. He said "Oh, it's a drink like Coca Cola."

My trip to Springfield went well today. I got to ride shotgun on both legs of the trip. The pilot was a super nice guy that was more than happy to answer all of my questions. It only took 37 minutes for the flight back. I forgot how long it took us to get there.

I will do a write up of my whole day, but probably not until tomorrow. I have to go make a birthday cake now, so here a few pictures to hold you.

We have rain here this morning and around when I am scheduled to return which means the visibility won't be too good for sightseeing. I don't know if the size plane we will be in allows us to go above the clouds or not. Springfield is partly cloudy today and no rain. I hope we get some turbulence. I think that makes it more interesting.

This is what my mini print server looks like installed.



You don't need a printer cable because the print server plugs right into the printer. Then you just plug in the power cable and the LAN cable that is connected to the router. Very elegant.

Printer cables are expensive and are limited in how long they can be. When I first set this up I was using a 100 foot LAN cable and it worked just fine.

Also, since the printer is connected directly to the router rather than through one of the computers it is always available to whatever computer is connected. Before the printer was connected to one of the computers, and if that computer was down then none of the other computers could print.

Our gas bill for the month of December was about $250.

Our gas bill for the month of January is about $175.

I have heard of people in apartments that had higher gas bills last month than we did.

We have a programmable thermostat and Monday through Friday it is programmed to drop to 57º after 11 PM, and then to go up to 64º by 6 AM the next morning.