Ohio State is ranked #9 in the preseason poll.

Their rank at the end of last season was #4.

Hey Sheri

(Sung to the tune of "Hey Julie" by Fountains of Wayne)

Working all day for a mean little man
With a clip-on tie and a rub-on tan
He's got me running 'round the office like a dog around a track
But when I get home,
You're always there to rub my back

Hey Sheri,
Look what they're doing to me
Trying to trip me up
Trying to wear me down
Sheri, I swear, it's so hard to bear it
And I'd never make it through without you around

Hours on the phone making pointless calls
I got a desk full of papers that means nothing at all
Sometimes I catch myself staring into space
Counting down the hours 'til I get to see your face

Hey Sheri,
Look what they're doing to me
Trying to trip me up
Trying to wear me down
Sheri, I swear, it's so hard to bear it
And I'd never make it through with out you around
No, I'd never make it through with out you around

How did it come to be
That you and I must be
Far away from each other every day?
Why must I spend my time
Filling up my mind
With facts and figures that never add up anyway?
They never add up anyway

Working all day for a mean little guy
With a bad toupee and a spou-stained tie
He's got me running 'round the office
Like a gerbil on a wheel
He can tell me what to do
But he can't tell me what to feel

Hey Sheri,
Look what they're doing to me
Trying to trip me up
Trying to wear me down
Sheri, I swear, it's so hard to bear it
And I'd never make it through with out you around
No, I'd never make it through without you around
No, I'd never make it through with out you around

For the first time in history, U.S. annual incomes fall for second time in two years. Thanks George W.

No retreat, baby, no surrender!

I cracked up when I saw this. My friend Tom E. has sheep. He used to have a beard like that, and I think he wears a hat like that on occasion.

This is how to spot the REALLY REALLY rich guys.

I applied the second bag of lawn fertilizer of the season about two weeks ago, and then we had two or three days of heavy rain soon after that. The grass is now a deep rich green. I love seeing that immediate transformation.

Our lawn got neglected the last two years because too much other s--t was going on. It is coming back amazingly well now.

I still need to get out in the newly dug flower beds with some herbicide for existing individual weeds that have come up through the mulch, and apply Preen to keep new weeds from popping up. I think today will be a perfect day for that.

I also bought some Miracle-Gro tomato fertilizer that needs to be applied now.

Walking around downtown yesterday we saw the new 300C parked in the street. I We changed course just to go look at it. It is very "muscley" and aggressive looking; especially the nose. The narrow side-windows also make it look very serious. However, when it comes down to it I guess I am not a "car guy". I don't feel the need to pay a whole bunch of money just to look good driving down the street. I can appreciate good styling and the underlying mechanical engineering, but not enough to compel me to buy one of them. I am much more compelled to buy on internal attributes like mileage, safety, internal dimensions, etc.

al Qaeda promises 'columns of car bombs' in Italy and Australia!

They finally opened up the Bobak's near us. Bobak's is a Polish deli, butchers, grocery store, and restaurant. They make and smoke all of their own sausages. Delicious.

So, we wanted to go out for dinner, and I was starving. We checked their website to see if it was open yet, and it said it was. We called just to confirm. Their restaurant is buffet style. Great for me, but a waste for Sheri. You can get food from the buffet for take-out by the ounce, so we asked if Sheri could just pay by weight rather than paying for the entire buffet. They said no problem. It worked out perfect. She had half of a breaded pork chop, a tablespoon of mashed potatoes and gravy, a tablespoon of corn, half of a potato pancake, a slice of polish cheese, and a slice of pineapple. She only ate about half of it. We will defiantly do that again.

Afterwards we strolled through the grocery store just to check things out. We got some of their Chicago-style hot dogs, homemade sauerkraut from a big serve-yourself barrel, a mango for $0.33, a couple of vine ripened tomatoes, and some half-baked rolls for the hotdogs. (I will finish baking them in the toaster oven when I am ready to use them. Mmmmm)

Just like the Bobak's in Burr Ridge, there were a bunch of really hot Polish babes walking around the grocery store.

We came home and made a couple of nice cups of coffee in the Senseo to cap off our meal. Also mmmmmmm.

We are going to wrap things up and get to bed so we are ready to walk dogs tomorrow morning.

With all of the hub-bub about West Nile virus, I am considering purchasing a Mosquito Magnet Defender. Home Depot is selling them for $300, and they cover ½ an acre. The next model up is $500 and covers a full acre. Consumer reports says it is the most effective and convenient mosquito trap.

Virus writer purports to show bin Laden's death

Antivirus company Sophos warned Friday of a scheme that invokes Osama bin Laden to convince people to open a file containing a Trojan horse called Hackarmy.

The message, which has been posted on several Internet newsgroups, claims to contain pictures taken by CNN journalists of bin Laden committing suicide. But once the supposed picture file is opened, it installs a Trojan horse [virus] that effectively recruits the infected machine into the author's army of "zombie" PCs--already-infected machines that can be controlled surreptitiously from afar. The zombified computers can then be used to distribute spam or launch denial-of-service attacks...[more]

[Reader's Digest version: DON'T CLICK ON ANYTHING THAT SAYS IT IS A VIDEO OF OSAMA BIN LADEN COMMITTING SUICIDE!]

Natasha, a 5-year-old black macaque walks at the Safari Park near Tel Aviv Tuesday July 20, 2004. The young monkey began recently walking exclusively on her hind legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her, zookeepers said.
(AP Photo/Eli Dasa)

Moron

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
-- William Shedd

The heat index in Chicago for Tuesday and Wednesday is forcast to be 99°!

We think we are going to buy Doom 3 when it is released on August 3.

I was up and at 'em at 8 am this morning because I was so excited to have another cup of Senseo coffee!

I found this site last night that is dedicated to reviewing anything related to pod coffee makers.

We bought a Senseo coffee maker today. I already LOVE it. It makes what is called "crema" style coffee because it has a light layer of creamy foam on top. It is the kind of coffee they served everywhere when I was in Switzerland. It is halfway between regular drip coffee and espresso, and is brewed under pressure. Because it is brewed quickly, it has much less acid than drip coffee. This coffee maker has been sold in Europe for something like five to ten years. 5,000,000 units have been sold. Europeans drink much smaller cups of coffee than Americans do. As a result of its European roots it is designed to only brew 4 ounces at a time. This was a big selling point for me. If I make a pot of coffee, I will drink the whole thing even if don't really want it. Getting four ounces of perfectly brewed coffee-house coffee will be just enough to get enjoyment without over-doing it. The preparation and cleanup is also super easy because it uses pre-measured pods. They cost about 25¢ each. Much cheaper than Starbucks.

Saturday Afternoon

I am sitting in Panera using their free wireless internet while Sheri does some shopping at Kohl's, Payless Shoes, Marshall's, etc. We split a turkey and cheese panini sandwich.
 
Before coming here we walked the dogs; stopped at CompUSA so I could exchange my defective USB flash drive that I posted about earlier; and then stopped at home so I could shower.
 
I want to go to Menard's to buy some more mulch, but my back is still hurting from Mom and Dad's visit.

Dad, keep an eye out for something from me in the mail. You won't believe your eyes.
Posted by Hello

Yep, I think I like "Hello". Free. No strings. Easy. Download your copy and add me as a friend and we can share pictures back and forth. (or just forth if you don't have a digital camera.)
Posted by Hello

This is just another test picture. The first one looked like it posted OK.
Posted by Hello

I am trying out some new software to host pictures in my blog for free, so I just needed a couple of test pictures. This is a dog picture that Sheri took last week but did not post. I think he looks a lot like Goliath. Our vet always said Goliath was a beagle mix. I think the mix was beagle/lab mix
Posted by Hello

Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison, plus five months of home detention and a $30,000 fine for lying to federal authorities investigating her sale of stock in a friend's company.

Important!

There have been some Windows security patches posted by Microsoft over the last few weeks. Click here and then click on the "Scan for updates" button. It will check your computer to see which patches you need installed on your computer. It should be pretty self explanatory. Just make sure that you have all of the items under "Critical Updates" checked and then click install. Depending on when the last time your system was updated you might have to do it a couple of times because some of the patches must be installed by themselves and then you have to reboot.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Sheri had a scare for about 30 minutes tonight; she lost her wedding ring. It turned up in my sock drawer. It slipped off while she was putting away laundry because her fingers have gotten too skinny. We need to take it in to the jewelers to have it resized.

I just got done cutting the grass and watering the flower beds. Everything still looks good. We still need to take some final pictures and post them to the web.



I ordered a few things from Amazon last night. The practical thing is a 256 megabyte flash drive for my keychain. It is basically a 256 Mg hard drive that fits on my keychain. That is as much storage space as 176 floppy disks!

The other items are things I am starting to collect casually:

WARNING: LOTS of bad language, but VERY funny.

Here are a couple of video clips of Shawn that Lisa asked me to post to make it easier for everyone to view. They are from a wedding they went to this weekend. It is cute that he dances exactly like Tim.

Clip 1

Clip 2

I was up most of the night with a severe stomach ache. No matter which way I turned I couldn’t get comfortable. I spent most of the night downstairs on the couch watching CNN. I was exhausted when it was time to walk the dogs so I stayed at home.

My stomach got better, but then I got a headache. Before we went out I took an Excedrin and we stopped at 7-Eleven for a Diet Coke. That fixed me up.

We went to the Toyota dealership so I could sit in a Corolla. I have been driving 30 miles to work each day (60 miles round trip). I am interested in a position in Algonquin which would be about 50 miles (100 miles round trip). It would be mostly expressway; I-355 north to I-90 West. With that kind of driving fuel efficiency becomes much more important.

The Corolla gets 41 mpg, (our Lumina gets 27 mpg) but I was concerned about the size of the car. They didn’t have a model in the air conditioned show room, so I had to have a salesman walk me to a model in the lot. I didn’t want to drive, just sit in it. With him standing three feet from me it was difficult to get a true feel for the car, plus it was baking hot, so I didn’t want to take too long, but it felt pretty good. He said I might be more comfortable in the larger Camry, so I sat in one that was in the showroom. I don’t think I noticed much difference, but again I felt like I couldn’t take my time because he was standing there three feet from me.

We then stopped at Cost Plus World Market outlet store; didn’t find anything. Then went to CompUSA to get a Memorex USB keyboard ($10 after mail-in rebate!) to use with the tablet PC I have been bringing home from work. Then went to Target to see if they had any Simpson’s figures. They didn’t, but we got toilet paper and a box of cereal. When I went to pay my credit card was missing. I paid with cash and then we went back to CompUSA. The cashier forgot to give it back to me.

On the way home we remembered that the area’s first Lowe’s hardware store had opened up this week, so we stopped in there just to check it out. I bought a $7 50-foot garden hose for the front of the house.

I looked at their selection of appliances. Huge! We need a dishwasher, and I would like a new GAS range. We currently have an electric range, but there is a gas connection behind the stove. They will install any dishwasher for $110. Not too bad. We will probably be doing that soon.

We are watching Paycheck now while I type this on the tablet PC using my new USB keyboard, and I am watering the front lawn with the new hose.

Mom and Dad came to Chicago Sunday morning and stayed until Wednesday morning. They came with 17 plants and their work clothes. We spent every day landscaping our yard. It looks amazing! Here are the first batch of pictures. Some before; some during; some after. I will post the rest in the next day or two.

I am achy all over; back, legs, etc. We had a fun time too.

I want to try this bathroom. It reminds me of a recurring dream I have.

Cool!

Can you name the truck with four-wheel drive,
smells like a steak, and seats thirty-five?
Canyonero! Canyonero!

Well, it goes real slow with the hammer down.
It's the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown.
Canyonero! Canyonero!

Twelve yards long, two lanes wide,
sixty-five tons of American pride!
Canyonero! Canyonero!

Top of the line in utility sports,
unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!
Canyonero! Canyonero!

She blinds everybody with her super high-beams.
She's a squirrel-squashin', deer-smackin' drivin' machine.
Whoa, Canyonero! Whoa!

I want the new Honda scooter called the Ruckus just for messing around. Doesn't it look fun? The MSRP is $1,900.