Hard Habit to (re)Start

 It's already been a month since my last post. Obviously, a lot has happened in between. But I realize that this is a hard habit to restart, though I want to keep it up. Reading back to years ago, it was so much fun to relive those moments that I took the time to capture. Cheer season (year) finally ended after a great run in the playoffs by the boys basketball team. Each week, they found a way to win, which kept the season alive, even if B was hoping for a 'L' to help clear her plate. The team didn't care to help her :) The last few games were held in Champaign at the State Farm Center (formerly Assembly Hall) which was pretty cool to visit. I'd never been there, and would definitely go back. This past weekend was Sadie's and both B and M (and their guys) decided to not go and just have a quiet, lowkey night at home. Good call all around. 

The Bug is Back

 Interesting one this week. Some cold bug hit the household, first with B, then N, and now it’s E … and M is saying tonight that she’s afraid that she’s not feeling well. Sore throat, congestion, lots of sneezing - the works. I am the only one untouched, so hoping it stays that way. The cheer season is winding down and last night, boys basketball was at Eisenhower, so E and I hit the road after work to get to Decatur early to visit Von Maur. The drive was okay, but rainy and a little freezing, with the potential for snow. As we got to Decatur and to the mall, the parking lot was pretty slick. E and I got out and immediately decided it was too slick to hang around D-town and go to the game. We ran into Von Maur, and I found 3 ties for $42 total! And the cashier took my name and number and said he’d reach out when they marked down their ties and shirts again. We’ll see on that, but that was my best haul yet. The ride home was fine and we picked up Head West for dinner - been craving it! 

Does anyone even blog anymore?

 Strange thing happened a few weeks ago. E and I were digging through our email for something and came across an old email with a link to this blog in it. And to our surprise, it was still there! And it was a lot of fun to reread those old posts and to relive moments of our lives. Facebook and Instagram replaced blogs, basically, and it’s easy to relive life through pictures and short posts, but those blog posts were great. So this is the first stab at returning to this format, many years later, to capture our life. Our three kids are much older (one’s in college!), we’ve moved, changed jobs, gotten a dog, had a few cats, gotten busier with life, but those moments I captured in this blog quickly took us back. I want to be able to do that again, so this is a shot. N is at SIUE this weekend, M is working at Wellthy and babysitting this weekend, and B has a few remaining basketball games to cheer at this weekend. It’s another weekend for an oil change for me (maintaining our fleet of cars — ugh), and then it’s the Super Bowl (KC vs Phi). Go Eagles! Gotta stay true to the NFC. N really got into football this year with her first foray into fantasy football. Even though she didn’t her league, she did retain first place all year long (as did I) - so I am doing something right. 

The intermittent blogger

It's been over a year since my last posting. As I get ready to start the fall semester, there is a glimmer of hope that I can start blogging, regularly, again. It's been about 9 months since I've had a sliver of free-time, so with that sliver that I see coming, perhaps the blog can be resuscitated .... Of course, only time will really tell.

These Days

The greatest gift we could give each other on Valentine's Day was time together - a nice lunch out and general bumming around town. Love the kids to death, but time with my wife is wonderful, and it doesn't happen as much as I'd like. But that's life these days, and life is good. Real good.

We've Caught ... Something

Everyone here is sick - blah. That's one of the fun things about kids -- once one gets sick, you ALL get sick. And so it is here. It's not horrible, but it's not fun. We're all feeling pretty tired, congested, and the kids are irritable -- short naps are not a good thing. Because we have just one humidifier (really, does anyone have two?), we put the kids in the same bedroom tonight so they could share it. This is a first, and it could be an interesting night. So far, we're two hours in and no major problems.

I Gave

When I was younger, I was always struck by how my mom gave blood regularly. I don't know how or why she started to do this, but I recall her doing this often. Recently, I noticed in the local paper a need for blood donation, and it hit me that I have no real reason for not donating blood. Really, it was just laziness and apathy. So I started a new trend today and stopped into my local blood donation center and gave. It was simple. Aside from filling out a small form and waiting a few moments for a nurse, the actual giving of blood took a bit more than five minutes -- ten tops. Later in the afternoon I felt a bit tired, but nothing worse than that.

I Guess it's Time

We decided to branch out and add a 2nd cell-phone line to our plan, so I stopped in the local cell-phone store and inquired about doing so. I learned we could do that, get a free phone, and we were due a free phone upgrade (it had been 55 months since we got our original phone). Now, we're not the most cell-phone dependent people, but, a free new phone is a free new phone. The clerk informed me that he had never seen anyone go so long without upgrading .... good to know.

That's our old phone on the right and the sleek new one on the left. Wowee!

Soooo Long ..... again.

Why it continually happens with this blog, I'll never know. The peaks and valleys of writing here cause me to think about ending the writing, but I always come back ... eventually. And, I am writing here again. It's cold today, just hovering above zero, and I spent much of my day driving, back and forth up to Bloomington. The snow blew across the road, causing the road to disappear at times, but it was never much worse than thick fog, until I got up to Bloomington - the roads were far worse there. But the new tires I got for the car really made me feel more comfortable in the bad conditions. And, I made it back home, so all is well. But that's the problem with taking classes up at ISU -- the spring semester. The weather is never bad in the fall, but in the spring, there are always a few nights when the roads get ugly, or the weather just makes me nervous, continually, about driving up and down I-55. This me thinking about when I was younger, 18 or so, and my friend Mike Alfini and I drove into Chicago to go record shopping, at stores like The Dummyroom, and Reckless Records, in terrible weather. There must have been at least three inches of snow on the roads, but we went anyways -- invincible. I can see the icy water puddles that gathered at the curbs, and the piles of snow that piled up in the curbs. But I have no clue what records I bought. None at all, and I am 99% sure I don't even own them any longer. But we made it downtown and back, safely, just as I did today.

Vote Him In

Come on .... enough is enough. Give Ron Santo what he deserves -- to be a Hall of Famer.

College Tuition Gets More Expensive

I heard this same story three times today, and not once did anyone explain it well. It's no secret that college tuition can be expensive and that tuition at some schools costs much more than it does at others. It is also no secret that some schools increase their tuition yearly. But when ABC news reports on just how expensive tuition is getting and how it is putting a college education out of reach for some folks, it irritates me ... not that they're wrong, but that they are implying that colleges are increasing tuition without much care for who it hurts. The fact is that increasing tuition is often a college's last option to allow it to continue to function at its normal level (number of classes offered, variety of classes offered, high-quality faculty, safe facilities, ...). College administrators are not dumb; if tuition becomes too high, they lose students, which means that they will get less assistance from the state. And THAT is the problem: states continue to cut the budget for higher education institutions. And, those same colleges are working hard to continue to offer the same education to its students when the resources of that college are shrinking. In order to continue to do what they do, they need to supplement the money that the state is no longer offering them with money from somewhere -- which is often tuition. But, again, this is a last resort, and one that is not taken lightly. Since I have taught at the college-level, I have never heard of a surplus of money coming in from the state. For the last seven years, each school I have taught at has talked about hard times and budget cuts. But more and more students show up, so we are doing more with less. So when tuition is increased, it's not about making a profit (there might be some exceptions to this, but not in the community college realm, at all); it's in an attempt to keep the lights on and help students get what they need.

the A.R.M

We coulda been a statistic -- seriously. You hear about all of these people who are running into trouble affording their monthly mortgage payment, and as I listen, I can't help but thinking about how lucky we are that we got out of our trap when we did. In our previous house, which was our first, we were in a trap-mortgage, which I believe was a 7-year ARM (adjustable rate mortgage). That means that after seven years, the mortgage company would adjust (raise) our interest rate. And, to make matters worse, we had a home equity loan to make up the difference of what we had been short for our 20% down-payment. That, we learned over the months, was not a fixed rate, either. Our payment on that was higher each month, which was tons of fun. Fortunately for us, we sold our home when the market was high, and we made money to have a solid down-payment on our current home, and our mortgage is fixed -- for the next 25+ years. But when I think back to our previous situation, I get sick. We always knew we would refinance, but never thought that the market might be so bad that refinancing wouldn't really be possible. I feel for those who weren't/aren't so fortunate.

Going Google-crazy with Gmail Video Chat!

If you haven't heard, Google now offers a video-chat feature via Gmail. And, it works really well. Really. Well. I am a big fan of iChat, but have had connection difficulties at times when talking with my wife while I am at work and she's at home, and we often resort to calling each other to finish a conversation. But over the past two days, using Google's video chat, we've had no problems. Earlier today, I even connected with my brother in Indianapolis, and I got a short tour of his spare bedroom/computer space. Very cool. If you have a webcam and a Gmail account, check this out at Gmail Voice and Video Chat.

The Perfect Storm

I haven't written anything at all about my fantasy football team this year, but after 10 weeks, my team is 10-0. Yes. I am undefeated. Every week, I have been okay with the prospect of losing, but it hasn't happened. This week, things have gotten to be a bit more challenging; my top player, Clinton Portis, is out, most likely, with an injury ... and I play the 2nd place team. But I have balance, and depth on my side, so I am pretty confident. Only time will tell.

Pumpkin Creation 2008

This year, for Halloween, we carved our first pumpkin. N drew the face, and I cut it out. She got a little upset when she saw me cutting out the eyes, mouth, and nose that she so carefully drew, but once I put a candle inside and lit it, she got the idea ... and was very impressed with our handy work.