Saturday, August 9th
The past couple weekends have been relatively quiet. We went down to Chesterton, Indiana where we met my mom and went to the Indiana Dunes. Afterwards we went back to her house and did some work on her new bog garden. We dug it out a bit larger, added some sand and pete to one side, and planted some flowers. We had dinner with her before coming back home.
Work has been really busy, with far too many things to do simultaneously. I managed to get some of the things I've actaully wanted to get done finished, without letting all of the things I had to get done slide. I've been riding the bike every day, which didn't work out so well on Monday when it rained on the ride in. I got fairly soaked, but the ride home was much better.
This weekend is an at home one. I took a crack at pulling out the catalytic converter in my car, but gave it up when I couldn't even get the first bolt loose. Hopefully I can find a mechanic willing to use the OEM replacement that's available, since I don't want a welded in model, or the obscenely expensive original Audi part.
Thursday, July 24th
It's been a while since I made a Journal entry. Two weeks ago I rode my bike up to Milwaukee where I met with Mike and Eriq. From there we rode up to Pembine, WI near the Upper Pennisula of Michigan and spent the weekend at the cabin. The 700 miles I put on the bike got a little grueling at times, but it was still a fun weekend. We had a fire, grilled some burgers, rode the motorcycles about, and had a good time. We hadn't done a guys weekend since 2002 (the pictures are on the Photos page), and we revived the vodka eggs tradition for better or worse. I also managed to get my shoelace stuck in the gear shifter and as a result couldn't put my foot down when I went to make a slow u-turn and laid down the bike for the first time. No damage to speak of, but I could have done without it just the same. I forgot to take my camera, so I won't have any pictures unless I get some from Mike or Eriq.
Last weekend on Saturday we went up to Silver Lake for a picnic with Sarah's extended family. The day was kind of overcast and it rained in the morning, but we still made the best of it with some grilling, riding on Ryan's jet ski, and playing frisbee. On the way back home we went to see the Dark Knight, and Sunday we took advantage of the better weather and spent the afternoon over at the beach by home.
Yesterday, Sarah and I went down to the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet for the Audi Driving Experience. We test drove the new Audi A4 around the race track and then did comparison drives around an autocross course with the Audi A4, BMW 328xi, Mercedes C300 4Matic, and Lexus IS250 AWD. After that we drove an Audi TT and a Q7 around the race track. It was a blast, especially the autocross circuit. Finally, yesterday evening we hopped on the train and went down to SmartBar in Wrigleyville for the Digg meetup. We met Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose along with a bunch of Diggers, got some Digg gear and had a couple drinks.
Tuesday, July 8th
I'm back from a long holiday weekend up at Sarah's parents' property with most of her family. We drove up Friday afternoon and headed over to Lake Petenwell, where we went tubing and played frisbee. That night we had a massive bonfire, and Saturday we shot skeet and did some target practice with a replica front-loading cap revolver that fired round shot. before driving to the LaCrosse Speedway to watch stock car races and fireworks. The drive back was terrible. We left at noon and didn't get back until about six, and only included one stop for gas and one stop at a cheese factory.
Tonight is a condo association meeting, and then I'm hoping to work on Spark, though my computer started crashing pretty regularly recently. It's possible that it's the memory, but I just replaced it a few months ago so in general I'm not very encouraged. At least all of the important stuff is backed up in case of any catastrophic data loss, but just the same I'd rather my computer would just work, without the periodic hardware failure that seems to plague me more than most people.
Tuesday, June 24th
It was a busy weekend. I took off Friday, though I wound up spending a lot of time on the phone for work-related things. I cleaned the house which had been in a state of decline for about a month and half. In the afternoon, my sister Melissa, her husband Tom, and their three kids arrived. Alex, my oldest nephew, just completed basic training at the Great Lakes Navy base. We went downtown and met up with my Mom and my other sister Jessica. We spent a little time at Millennium Park and then went to dinner, before I drove Alex back to base.
My mom and Jessica spent the night, and then they took the train Saturday morning up to Waukagan to spend the day up there with Melissa and family. Sarah and I met up with her family for dinner at Flat Top Grill, a Mongolian barbeque, down on North Avenue. Afterwards we all came back home and had dessert. Her brothers spent the night and we played computer games well into the night.
Sunday morning I picked up Alex from the train station and we watched a movie until Melissa, Tom, and Alex arrived from Indiana where they had been attending her high school reunion. We went to lunch and then played frisbee at the beach until it started raining. They headed back towards the base to have dinner at Gurnee Mills, while Sarah, her brothers and I played a round of Forged Alliance before they went home. So, as I said, a pretty busy weekend.
Tuesday, June 17th
Let's see. Last weekend was my birthday. Friday Sarah made a really nice dinner and then we went down to the local pub for a drink and some pool. Saturday we drove down to my mom's to celebrate both my birthday and my sister's, but then Steve and I spent most of the day trying to install some cabinets while Jessica and Sarah dug up some shrubs.
Sunday we went down to Andersonville's MidSomerfest and did some shopping and eating. We got a neat wooden box to hold our Wii-motes and Wii nunchucks when we're not using them. Then we went up to Sarah's parents' house after a quick stop at the hospital to see her sister Nikki's newborn, Brianna. We had dinner with her parents, her brothers, and her sister's kids.
Yesterday we rode the bike downtown to meet my sister and her coworker at Gino's East for some deep dish pizza. I'd heard of it before, so it was good to finally go there, but the wait was pretty long. It was nice to spend some time with Jessica, since Saturday we were busy most of the day.