Regression Ping-Pong Tournament

Yes, we really do work here, but regression is an entirely different experience. Finally, I won the regression ping-pong tourney! Hurray! :-)

Regresstion Testing, the Movie?!?

The powers that be extended our regression testing cycle by one week, so we're still in the trenches. But they also scheduled an additional "Destiny Fun" activity. Last Monday we broke into six teams (of about seven people each). Our task was to create a Destiny movie, using one famous film as a baseline. The films chosen were:

1. It's a Wonderful Life
2. Grease
3. Willy Wonka
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. Rocky
6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

We were given 30 minutes each day to work on our film. The finished product was to be shown yesterday (Monday) for voting and general entertainment.

I was on the Willy Wonka team, and we decided to try to condense the whole movie down to about 10 minutes. I had the dubious honor of playing "Charlie". We remembered that the movie was set in Britain, but we couldn't remember if Charlie himself was British. So I just tossed in a Cockney accent, for the fun of it. This made the experience of watching the film very difficult for me. Like most people, I can't stand the sound of my own voice on any recording. So it was even worse to hear myself faking a falsetto Cockney accent! But we had a blast putting everything together for the film.

There were five awards given for the movies; four from the "official" judges, and one from the team (our "Viewers' Choice" awards). Horace won Best Comedic Performance (for his portrayal of a disgruntled lyricist whose lyrics were removed from John Williams' "Raiders" score). Ray won Best Supporting Actor (as Tim the Enchanter in "Monty Python"). Lou won Best Actor (as Rocky). In Lou's case, he actually drank a raw egg on screen, which made him a shoe-in for the award. I was nominated for Best Comedic Performance and Best Supporting Actor. The "official" Best Picture went to "Monty Python". But we snagged the Viewers' Choice award!

We should have a DVD of all of the films pretty soon. So if you feel like torturing yourself, drop on by... and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.

Poor Swimmer!

Kathryn's first pet was a Betta fish which she named "Swimmer". We got it for her last year for Christmas. Well, Swimmer just died. So Kristin and I broke the bad news on Friday. Of course, Kathryn started crying, which made me start to tear up. But Kristin had the great idea to take Kathryn to Chuck E. Cheese for supper to take her mind off of Swimmer. Her plan worked beautifully.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if Swimmer's death has quite "hit" her yet. Whenever she prays for her meals, she still thanks God for Swimmer (and for the family, her imaginary friend, all her toys, etc). Only time will tell.

Our trip through the snow

Early last week, I decided to schedule a long trip for Kathryn and I this weekend. I decided to drive us out to Davenport, Iowa on Friday afternoon, spend the night in a hotel, go see The Polar Express in IMAX 3D on Saturday, and drive home. Of course, I wasn't counting on having the biggest snow storm in decades on Friday morning!

I went out to shovel the driveway at 5:45 on Friday morning. An hour-and-a-half later I came back in, soaking from the very wet snow. 45 minutes after that, I couldn't tell that I'd already shoveled once -- it was snowing that much. It was about this time that I discovered (much to my relief) that FSC had closed for the day. Hurray!

But I still had to deal with the rest of the snow. So I went out at 9:00 to clear the driveway again. This time, the snow and I maintained a delicate truce until it started to taper off at 10:00. Kathryn came out to play for a while, and she managed to get herself stuck in a couple of snow drifts before retreating to safety indoors.

I knew the storm was supposed to end by noon, and the plows had already cleared most of the roads in our subdivision. So we decided to give the snowplows a few more hours, and then try to get as far as Rockford. I cancelled our reservation in Davenport and made a new one at the Comfort Inn in Rockford.

We left around 3:00 and arrived safely a few hours later. To entertain us on our drive, I packed my iPod with a few of Kathryn's favorite CDs. We sang along with her God of Wonders: Praise and Worship CD for most of the trip. Then she surprised me by asking to listen to one of my "mix" CDs. I'd played it once while Kathryn was in the car, and she really enjoyed the music from the different movies (especially Superman and Pirates of the Caribbean). She also loves Charlie Peacock's In the Light and Message Boy (which should make Bill and Paul very happy).

That night we went swimming in the hotel pool, and spent some time in the hot tub (all that shoveling was murder on my back and shoulders). Kathryn was a very good girl the whole time. (Of course, she's normally happy when she has our undivided attention).

The next morning we rose early to grab some breakfast in the hotel lobby (for some reason, the hotel breakfast is one of Kathryn's favorite things to do when at a hotel on vacation). Then we started down to Davenport. The roads were much clearer today, with just the occasional patch of packed snow. Unfortunately (as normally happens in cold weather), the wiper fluid froze up, and the trucks on the highway were kicking up great quantities of salt. I pulled over several times to pour extra fluid on the windshield. Once, while trying to thaw the wiper fluid, I couldn't get the hood to latch for a few minutes -- the spring on the catch had frozen. I spent a few minutes in fervent prayer until it finally caught again.

But finally, after many trials, we made it to the Putnam Museum and IMAX Theater in Davenport. For some unknown reason, Kathryn absolutely loves The Polar Express. We went to see it in the theater with my mom and sister when it first came out. And that was probably Kathryn's earliest memory of a theater-experience. And after that, my Mom used The Polar Express soundtrack to put Kathryn to sleep whenever Kathryn stayed overnight at Mom's house. So maybe that explains why she loves that movie so much.

As for me, I remembered it as a cute movie, but nothing spectacular. But this IMAX 3D version completely blew me away! I have never enjoyed a movie experience as much as I enjoyed this one (not even when compared with the first time I saw Fellowship)! The 3D process was absolutely perfect for this movie, with its long shots and picturesque camera moves. Most movies have too much action to work in 3D, because when the picture moves too quickly the 3D just becomes a blur. But this was absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful! If you ever have a chance to see The Polar Express in the IMAX 3D format, do it! It's amazing!

Then we just drove home, singing nursery rhymes, worship songs, or Christmas songs most of the way. It was a very tiring trip, but all-in-all I'm glad we went.

Some pictures

We took some family pictures for the holidays. Here are my two favorite pictures of our girls.

Yes, I'm still alive

The past few weeks have been very busy indeed. In fact, I needed to check my last post to remember when I'd last written. Lots of things have happened since then:

Kathryn and I attended the annual AWANA rollerskating party. It was Kathryn's first time on skates, and it was my first time since high-school. Kristin and Rebecca came too, since Kristin wanted to get out of the house, and wanted to see Kathryn's first rollerskating experience. We almost ended the evening early when Kathryn fell down and I nicked her finger with one of my skates. I was mortified! But she recovered and actually started to skate a bit (instead of just clomping around in the skates).

For Halloween, Kathryn was a pirate! Unfortunately, it was bitterly cold that evening, so we only visited the houses within a couple blocks of our house. When I get back home, I'll have to find the pictures of the event.

This weekend, Karin, Travis, and Sammy came to stay with us. Since the whole family was in town, Gail and Marge decided to visit too. The house was very full, and we all had a great visit. While Grandma and Grandpa were available for baby-sitting, Karin, Travis, Kristin, and I took advantage of the fact. We went out to see "Stranger Than Fiction". It was a remarkably good movie. I don't normally find Will Ferrell very funny, but this movie had all of us in stitches!

Rebecca's doing fine, but she's got a slight case of the sniffles. I'll try to be a bit more prolific with these blog entries in future... I hope. If I fall behind again, please just e-mail me a slap-upside-the-head to get me back on track. Thanks!

The Family Shopping Outing

Yesterday was our first full "outing" with the whole family since Rebecca was born. We had a few tough times, but we all survived.

Our first stop was at Kathryn's pre-school for a fundraising Fun Fair. I volunteered to help, and was assigned to the Bean-Bag Bucket Toss (like Bozo buckets, with candy in each bucket). The kids were mostly around that happy age that delights in everything (somewhere between 2 and 6) so I had a blast! Kristin took Kathryn and Rebecca around to the other games, and Kathryn came back with a lot of goodies.

Then we drove down to Pita Inn for lunch. Kristin doesn't like it as much as Kathryn and I do, but she still enjoys it in moderation. After that, we hit the main object of our day: Woodfield Mall. We found some early Christmas gifts, and some birthday gifts for Kathryn and for my mother. And we did a lot of walking.

I particularly enjoyed one moment, during dinner at Ruby Tuesday's. Rebecca started getting hungry, and the nearby Motherhood Maternity store allows breast-feeding in their fitting rooms. But our food had just arrived, and Kristin naturally wanted to eat a bit before being chased out with Rebecca. So I held her for a while, using my pinky knuckle to satisfy Rebecca for as long as I could (see the post Rebecca's Habits). Of course, now I can't eat, since both of my hands are occupied. So Kathryn used my fork to feed me some of my pasta while I held Rebecca.

And another notable occurrence: Kathryn's been coloring her speech with many little extra flourishes lately, as in this example yesterday, "It's a good thing I got that 'Get Out of Jail Free' card, because on the very next turn... BAM... I landed right on the 'Go to Jail' space." For some reason, that "BAM" really cracked me up.

Rebecca's Habits

Over the last two weeks, we've discovered a lot about Rebecca's habits. Everyone warned us that "no two babies are alike." Well, they're right (at least as far as Kathryn and Rebecca are concerned).

Like Kathryn, Rebecca is generally very well-behaved. But Rebecca moves her arms and legs a lot more than Kathryn did. To this day, Kathryn sleeps on her back, completely still. But Rebecca is rarely completely still.

Of course, Rebecca's main activities are eating and sleeping. I love holding her while she's sleeping, but I can't really do anything with her when she's hungry. Babies have something called a "rooting instinct", which the Wikipedia defines as, "When the baby's cheek is stroked, the baby will move his or her face towards the stroking and open his or her mouth, demonstrating the rooting instinct." And (partly because Rebecca moves so much) she often accidentally brushes her cheek with her sleeve. We've lost count of the number of times we've seen Rebecca lying on the floor, straining with mouth open to latch onto her sleeve. She doesn't have much control over her arms or legs yet, so it's a bit like watching a dog chase its tail!

But once Rebecca decides it's time to eat, my sole contribution is to delay her long enough for Kristin to get ready to feed her. Sometimes it takes a while for Kristin to get ready (especially if she's in the shower, or if I'm just trying to give her some time to sleep before she has to feed Rebecca again). So, in the meantime, Rebecca thrashes her head from side to side, trying to find anything to latch onto. Fortunately, once she finds something to suck on, she stops crying for a short while. Over the last two weeks, I've discovered precisely how long a given item will keep her satisfied:

• Pacifier: varies from three seconds to one minute
  
• My sleeve: two seconds
• My cheek: three seconds (our version of a "kiss")
• My arm (sans sleeve): ten seconds
• Her own thumb/finger/hand/fist: fifteen seconds
  
• The tip of my pinky finger: twenty seconds
• The knuckle of my pinky finger: five minutes!

So as you can see, if Kristin is ever more than six minutes away, there's nothing I can do if Rebecca is really hungry. But most of the time, she just wants a cuddle. That's another difference between Kathryn and Rebecca. Kathryn was content to stay on the floor on her back between feedings. Rebecca demands a bit more "cuddle-time".

More Rebecca pictures

It's been a crazy few days. All of the grandparents have visited (at least once, if not twice). But we're starting to settle into a routine, of sorts. Kristin and Rebecca came home from the hospital on Thursday afternoon. That night, Rebecca slept very well. Unfortunately, Friday night was exactly the opposite -- she wanted to eat every minute! But last night was wonderful again. It seems that Rebecca is alternating between good and bad nights. So Kristin and I are expecting a very sleepless night tonight.

In case you're wondering (and in case there's anyone left who doesn't know the story), Kristin allowed me to choose Aileen as Rebecca's middle name. It was my paternal Grandmother's name, and I've really missed her since she died. Kristin chose Rebecca as the first name because (as she says) her first choice (Amanda) didn't work very well with Aileen. In some variations, Rebecca means "to bind or captivate". And Aileen is a variation of Helen, which means "light". We thought it was pretty cool to give her a name which means "captivating light"!

On Saturday, Kathryn, Randy, and I went to the Trinity Homecoming football game. Kathryn has already started to express jealousy toward Rebecca. So we wanted to make sure that Kathryn still had her special outing on Saturday. (Trinity won, by the way. 24 to 3 against Joliet's University of St. Francis.) Kathryn absolutely beamed when I showed her the place in Johnson Hall Lounge where Kristin and I sat after our first date. Then I told her about how "Uncle Bill" came in and gave me such an exuberant greeting that he nearly knocked me over (seat and all). Kathryn's response was, "Uncle Bill is so silly!"

I'm going back to work on Wednesday, so Kristin's mom is going to come back that day to help Kristin around the house. The time has been going by so quickly! I can't believe it's Sunday already. But anyway, here are a couple extra Rebecca pictures for you to look at. I took them to church today, and was nearly mobbed by the entire Women's Ministry team as they each tried to be the first to see pictures of the new baby.

Rebecca Aileen Howk

Here she is!

10-03-2006 9:21 p.m. 6 lbs. 9 oz. 19 1/2 inches.

Baby Update

Kristin says this much better than I ever could, so here is the copy of her e-mail:

Baby has, somehow, mananged to make it to week 37 (probably due to all your prayers), so when she comes she will not be a preemie! YAY!! Now on to the medical details.

During the past week (week 36) I was in the office being checked out and monitored every day except Friday. On Wed morning and Sun night (early Mon morning, really) we had some false alarms. Last night (about 1am) I thought my water had broken, but the nurses at the hospital said otherwise and, since I was still only dilated to about 3 1/2 and not having contractions, they sent me home. :-(

This morning, at my 11am appointment, I saw both the doctor and the nurse practitioner/midwife, who said "I can't figure out why you're not in labor, you're dilated to 5cm." Then they hooked me up to the monitor and confirmed what my own experience told me: I'm not having contractions right now. In fact, between being sent home from the hospital at 3am and going to the doctors office at 11, I only felt contraction. So I'm not sure how I went from 3.5 to 5 so quickly, though I highly suspect those prayers for baby's continued development are why it didn't happen sooner. :-)

The doctor told us (Michael arrived at the office towards the end of the monitoring session) that it's dangerous to be walking around dilated to 5, as the baby could decide to slide out on her own. So, he's going to give me today and tomorrow to go into labor on my own, and then on Wed morning, if needed, he will induce labor by breaking my waters (the amniotic fluid/sac surrounding baby).

So baby should be arriving soon! (And it's just as well, the waiting was starting to really mess with my mind.) Looking forward to seeing all of you, and showing off the little one (who has hair, remember).

My long absence

Well, I haven't written in this thing for a long time. We've been trapped in "false labor pains" for a while now, and it's starting to wear us down a bit. Since Kristin's only in her 36th week, we're praying for the baby to wait just a bit longer. But the doctor seems to think that Kristin will deliver "any day now", and every contraction makes us wonder if "it's time".

So I haven't had time to write in my blog for a while. Every time I get a spare moment, I'm either spending time with Kristin, Kathryn, Randy, or Bill. When I'm not spending time with friends and family, I relax by fighting the Nazis in Company of Heroes. In fact, I'm about to go play that game right now (it's very therapeutic). So I haven't had much time for writing in my blog.

But over the last couple weeks, we've done a couple of interesting things. Kathryn and I went to the Enchanted Castle again, attended Amethyst's third birthday party, and went to the Rockford Children's Museum / Discovery Center. I've seen several movies (Hollywoodland, Flyboys, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Searching for Bobby Fischer). We're still thoroughly enjoying our time at AWANA. And I've started to teach Kathryn how to play Monopoly.

Normally, each of those topics would be an entry in itself, but I'm not really in the mood to write tonight. Instead I'm gonna go push the Germans out of Cherbourg. Good night!

Cary and Becky's New Addition

Here is the very first family picture with Cary, Becky, and Anthony! Hurray! We can't wait to see all three of you very soon! Welcome home!

Guys' Weekend, Part 5: The Pranksters Revealed

Well, between the last post and this one, I chatted with Sarah. She revealed to me that it was, in fact, she and Jen who planted the prank at the cabin! Here's what Sarah had to say about it:

Ladies & Gentlemen,

This past weekend was a smash hit for some and a rather unsettling experience for others. I would like to uncover a few mysteries by telling of the weekend from a female point of view.

Jen & I decided to take a trip up to the Dells this weekend. While a great, fun place to visit it was also in rather close proximity to some men who we decided to have a little fun with.

We started off small thinking a pile of stones with some ketchup should be sufficient, but really there needed to be more. So we moved on to body outlines consisting of plastic utensils (very noisy by the way). During the day we visited a candy store and there were these long gummy snakes that would provide a perfect element of fun & fright. Putting all the pieces together we did a mock up of the outline in our room and then headed up to the cabin where the men were sleeping peacefully around 12:30am.

Everything was going perfectly, we had found the cabin no problem, parked at the end of the drive, took the paths to the back of the house (we noticed there was a light on at the front of the house) and started to lay out the body outlines. We got about half-way through when this dark creature started to approach. At first we were frightened, but then a dog bounded up to us and became our partner in crime for the rest of our adventure, literally he would not leave our sides. Jen even tried several unsuccessful attempts to take him back home. He thwarted our plans just enough that we could only do two outlines when we wanted to do three and we had to reapply ketchup several times as he kept licking it off the severed mid-section of our 1st outline.

There were a few time we thought for sure we had been caught. There was a slam at one point, we though had to be a door, we lost ourselves in laughter a couple of times, and the dog at one point sounded like he was barfing (loud noise).

We gathered up our leftovers and headed back to the car, the dog however had other plans and made it very difficult for us to leave, jumping on the car, trying to get inside and then weaving around the car as we tried to back out of the driveway.

We drove away and had made it back to Necedah and felt a bit down. We wanted to see the reactions so after some discussion we drove back to the cabin. The dog once again greeted us at the end of the driveway and we headed down to the cabin. No lights were on and save for the sound of snoring there was silence. We checked the back and everything was still perfect so we left.

Suspecting that we had been caught at some point, we were eager to hear any reactions from the guys, little did we know the kind of evening they had been through and how it added to our prank.

Needless to say, we are THRILLED it went off so well and hope now that all the cards are on the table, we can all have a hearty laugh about this....goodness knows Jen and I have :)

So a big hearty "congratulations" goes out to Jen and Sarah for this one. They got us good!

Guys' Weekend, Part 4: The Big Black One-Eyed Dog

On Saturday evening, while Bill was still dozing, Jeff and I started working on building a fire for the night. As we were chopping little bits of kindling, we heard the sound of an engine approaching from the back of RJ's property. It was a woman driving an ATV. When she saw us, she asked if we had seen a black lab around the area. When we told her that we hadn't, she explained that she was looking for her one-eyed black lab, that it's name was Pookie (or Pokey), and that it was a "city dog". Then she gestured vaguely towards the back of RJ's property and said that she was our neighbor in that direction. Then she drove back down the trail.

RJ has a lot of trails in the back of his property, primarily for snowmobiling and four-wheeling. I've only walked down the trails a few times. In the daylight, it's a very pleasant walk. But at night, it's a confusing nightmare of twists and turns. This will be important later on in the story.

Later that night after we finished eating Bill's excellent meal of steak, chicken, and portabella mushrooms, we sat talking around the fire. I'm not sure what time it was, but in the middle of Bill's story, Jeff said, "Shhhh! There's a dog nearby; I can hear its collar clinking." We turned around toward the cabin, and reached for our flashlights. We turned them on... and there it was. A big black dog, standing at the edge of the firelight, near the picnic table. It couldn't have been more than 15 feet away, and because of the darkness, it seemed to appear out of nowhere. Then the light caught the glint of that one eye, and it really creeped me out.

Jeff and I tried to explain about the woman's lost dog (since Bill was sound asleep inside when the woman showed up). Then Jeff called it over, and it turned out to be a very friendly, but timid, dog. Jeff got it to sit next to his chair by the fire, and then we tried to decide what to do. We weren't really sure where RJ's trails led, but the neighbor to the north was making a lot of noise, so Jeff decided to try there first. Bill and I stayed with the dog as Jeff went to ask the north neighbors if they knew anything about this dog. When Jeff returned, he reported that they almost disbelieved his story about the dog, saying, "There aren't any one-eyed black dogs around here!" It was also Jeff's impression that our neighbors were already a bit on the inebriated side.

So now Jeff decided to search down the trails at the back of RJ's property. He came back a bit later to explain that the woods started getting very dark. Then he heard the sound of a baby crying, remembered the "Blair Witch Project", and fled back to the cabin. :-)

So we tried again. This time I went with Jeff, and we decided to take the dog with us. We used some rope from RJ's shed as a leash, and set off again. This time the dog seemed to know where we were going. It had its nose to the ground and it was pulled Jeff along at a pretty good clip. We followed the ATV tracks all the way around to RJ's other neighbor: only a short walk away from RJ's cabin! If we'd known where the tracks led, we could have saved a LOT of time. The dog seemed to know where it was. It walked straight up the stairs to a door in the trailer. We knocked, but there was no answer. So we walked back to the campfire (taking the short, direct route this time).

Over the course of the next couple hours, Jeff walked back to the south neighbor's to see if anyone came home. We gave the dog some water, which it lapped down greedily. But eventually, we had to turn in. We considered what to do with the dog. Our first idea was to take the dog inside for the night. But we didn't think we should risk bringing a strange dog into RJ's cabin -- we didn't want it to start tearing up the carpeting or the furniture. Since the dog seemed to know its way back to the neighbor's place, and since it wasn't that cold a night, we hoped the dog would find its way back. We all felt helpless about leaving it outside, but we couldn't think of a better option.

I fell asleep almost immediately, so I don't know what happened next. As Jeff tells it, the dog started barking later in the morning (around 3:00 a.m.), but then suddenly stopped. I didn't hear a thing. But the next morning, we awoke to discover that someone (probably the north neighbors) apparently didn't appreciate the barking that late at night. There were two "police chalk-outlines" (made out of white plastic knives and forks) on the ground outside. One of the two outlines was cut in half, with ketchup spread around it. We didn't wait around to ask any questions. We'd planned to leave at noon, so we packed up our stuff (including the chalk-outlines) and went to the local "Roadhouse" for lunch before heading home.

I wish I had some sort of closure for this story, but I don't. We saw neither the dog, nor the neighbors again. An odd ending to an odd experience...

But on the way home, we had the chance to listen to the Bears completely dominate the Packers (which is, of course, the best possible ending to any Wisconsin trip)!

Guys' Weekend, Part 3: The Rock

On RJ's cabin web page, he mentions a rock formation that he simply calls The Rock. Jeff and I tried to find it on Friday afternoon, but without success. We expected that something as grandiose as The Rock would have signs and a Park-District-sponsored trail all neatly marked out for travelers. As it turns out, The Rock is simply a huge rock formation, right next to the Wisconsin River. There are no signs, and no parking lot (except at a restaurant across the street). By the time we realized where we were supposed to be, it was already getting dark. So we decided to wait until Bill arrived, and try The Rock together.

On Saturday, Bill (having just arrived at 5:00 a.m.) was in no shape to scramble up The Rock. So Jeff and I left him at the cabin and went by ourselves. Now, for those of you who don't know Jeff, let me explain that he and his wife Christy have (on multiple occasions) gone on hiking trips in the Rocky Mountains. They frequently go out camping. I was, frankly, a little intimidated at the idea of trying to keep up with Jeff.

Getting up to the rock formations themselves was the hardest part of the experience. We walked up a steep dirt trail toward The Rock, but it felt like we were "crawling vertically" rather than "walking". The dirt was fairly loose, and I found myself grasping at the ground with my hands on more than one occasion. The few trees along the trail became my best friends, because I could hang onto them without worrying about sliding back down the trail.

When we made it up to The Rock itself, I felt more comfortable. I've always liked clambering around on rocks, and these rocks had enough footholds to make me very happy. The view from the top was breathtaking! Of course, neither of us had a camera. So you'll have to take our word for it that we were actually there.

Guys' Weekend, Part 2: I Hate Nintendo Football

To waste some time on Friday night, Jeff and I tried playing Nintendo Super Pro Football at RJ's cabin. Neither of us knew the game, and there was no instruction manual. In order to learn the game, we decided to play together against the Nintendo. We figured we'd grasp the concept after running a few plays. We set it to "Beginner" and chose to play the Chicago Bears. We let the Nintendo play the Green Bay Packers.

It only took us a few plays to realize that we didn't have the slightest clue how this game was supposed to work. Every time we passed, it was intercepted. When we tried to run, the quarterback would try to toss a shuttle-pass to non-existent teammates. We regularly ended up in punt formation on second down. And when we actually wanted to punt on fourth down, our team instead tried to kick a field goal from our own 20.

Somehow, we managed to get a touchdown on the first game. I think we picked up a fumble at Green Bay's 10 yard line and ran it in. Of course we missed the extra point, but we were too ecstatic to mind. The final score was Chicago: 6, Green Bay: 100.

The next day was little better. We decided that the game probably used statistics from the real NFL teams (and the game was made in 1992). Obviously, the '92 Packers would dominate the '92 Bears. So we decided to play the Packers and make the Nintendo play the Detroit Lions. The result was a catastrophic Packers: 0, Lions: 77.

Guys' Weekend, Part 1: Where's Bill?

Last year, Jeff, Randy, and I waited for Bill and Paul before leaving McHenry for the cabin. The original plan was to leave at 1:30. But because of work schedules and various delays, Bill and Paul didn't show up until 4:00 or so.

So this year, Jeff and I decided to leave whenever we were ready, get up to the cabin before Bill and Paul, and wait for them to show up. The first wrinkle in our plan was when Paul unexpectedly cancelled. He had some kind of foot injury, and he needed to have it checked out. Bill was more than slightly concerned about having to drive up to the cabin alone. We reassured him that if he printed out the directions on RJ's website, he wouldn't have any trouble. So, armed with RJ's directions, Bill told us that he was going to "take it slowly" and that we shouldn't expect him until about 11:00 p.m. Knowing Bill, we estimated that we wouldn't see him until around midnight...

Jeff and I arrived at the cabin around 4:30 - 5:00. We spent our time building a fire, playing Nintendo Super Pro Football (see "Guys' Weekend, Part 2"), and searching the area for The Rock (see "Guys' Weekend, Part 3").

But at about 1:30 a.m. we started wondering about Bill. The temperature had plummeted, and it was a very cloudy, dark night. There's absolutely no cellular coverage around the cabin (the nearest signal is 15 miles away), so if Bill got lost in the area, he might never find his way out again. So Jeff and I drove back down the road until we finally got a cellular signal. We were hoping that Bill had left me a message on my phone, "Hey guys. It's really late now, so I decided to wait until Saturday." But he didn't. I tried calling his cell phone, but I didn't get an answer. So we figured that either he was sleeping at home, or he was already lost in the Cellular Dead-Zone.

We couldn't do anything else, so we went back to the cabin and went to sleep. Almost the last thing we said was, "If Bill shows up tonight, we're gonna pay him back by scaring the living daylights out of him."

A few hours later (we found out later that it was 5:00 a.m.), Jeff woke me up: "Michael! I think Bill just pulled up!" We both scrambled down RJ's ladder-like staircase. I ducked into the doorway to the bathroom. From there, Bill would need to pass me to get into the cabin, but I wouldn't be in view immediately. Bill came in very quietly, passed me, and starting putting his bags down. I stood for a few moments, deciding how best to startle him. As I contemplated this act of absolute cruelty, I imagined the look on Bill's face. It was such a funny thought that I laughed out loud. Unfortunately for Bill, I was close enough to him that the sound of my laughter did the job nicely. He jumped straight into the air, cocked his fist, and spun around. I have to give him credit for such incredible reflexes; he moved faster than I thought he could.

The Guys' Weekend

Tomorrow Jeff, Bill, Paul, and I are heading up to RJ's cabin in Wisconsin for our annual Guys' Weekend. Randy can't come because he's visiting his family in Florida. RJ is one of my co-workers, and he has a standing offer for any of his friends to use his cabin, as long as we take good care of it. There's a big firepit up there, and RJ said that he left us a LOT of firewood.

RJ's a great fellow, but he's got the reputation at work for being a prankster. And it's no wonder: he's the webmaster of ComputerPranks.com, and he often brings his antics into the workplace. So who knows what we'll find up there. I'm always a little hesitant to use the shower... because I'm always paranoid that he's got a web-cam installed in there. (Just kidding, RJ... I hope!)

Unfortunately, I seem to be a bit more accident-prone this year. I've had two injuries over the last two days. Yesterday I bruised my shin pretty hard at AWANA (trying to beat Marshall to the first-place prize). I don't know what (or who) I hit. There were a bunch of flailing arms and legs, a collision, and somehow I ended up with a bruised shin.

Then today at work, I gave myself a nice long cut while playing table tennis (yes, we have a ping-pong table at work). Brian hit a nice shallow slice off the right side of the table. As I reached to return it, my forearm got a little too close to the corner of the table, and I cut myself pretty well. I did return the ball, but I had to forfeit anyway (it's not sanitary to bleed all over a ping-pong table).

So the way things are going, I'll be lucky to avoid falling into the firepit!

Just Like Heaven

If you haven't seen "Just Like Heaven", beware that spoilers follow...

I'm finally starting to understand Randy's "Good Movie" Criteria, which I now paraphrase as, "A movie should only be as good as it's trying to be." It's still nonsense, but I'm starting to see a glimmer of truth in it. My personal version of Randy's Criteria is, "As long as I set my expectations to the right level, I can enjoy almost any movie."

Thus, when I sat down to watch "Just Like Heaven", I was prepared for a cute generic romance. I was not disappointed. It was precisely a cute generic romance; no more and no less. But there were a few points which worked in its favor. It didn't overuse its jokes. It didn't spend too much time setting up the fact that our main character is a ghost. And aside from one very ill-placed scene, it didn't rely on slap-stick humor. I liked it only because it didn't fall into too many of the common romance pitfalls. Like the movie "Men of Honor," it was a very average movie. I know I spent 90 minutes watching... something. But after a year, I probably won't even remember that I saw it.

The only scene that impacted me at all was the ending. And, unfortunately, it wasn't a good thing. All romance movies require at least one "let-down" moment: the couple breaks-up, or there's a huge misunderstanding, or one of them is presumed dead, etc. In this case, they just decided to play the old "amnesia" trick: one character completely forgets the entire relationship until some event triggers her memory. Then our couple happily embraces, and the credits roll. It was just an excuse to tack a few extra minutes onto the running time. I don't think they could have come up with a weaker ending if they tried.

All-in-all it was a cute, but very forgettable movie.

Anthony Alexander is coming to America

Great news! After jumping through many legal hoops, Cary and Becky are going to Guatemala tomorrow to bring their new son home! Much rejoicing! I have no idea when they'll be back, but at least the waiting game is finally over. Three loud cheers!

Storytelling at the Celtic Knot Pub

A few weeks ago, Jeff and Christy invited us to attend the Illinois Storytelling Festival in Spring Grove. I had no idea that "professional storytelling" was still being done, or that it was still so popular. I expected it to be quaint, but somewhat dull. I was happily mistaken. Most of the stories ranged between stand-up comedy and morality tales, and we were enthralled.

So last Thursday, Kristin and I went down to the Celtic Knot Pub in Evanston to hear Sid Lieberman perform. It was a long drive, but I enjoyed spending the time with Kristin (it's not something we get to do very often). The Knot is a nice Irish pub in downtown Evanston. Kristin had the steak, and I (of course) had the Shepherd's Pie (very well made). Then we retired into a little room off the main dining room called The Snug (because, well... it's snug). Sid told us two stories: one brand-new one about his father, and an old one about his daughter. The story about his dad was a "first telling," so he asked us to offer some suggestions for improvement.

I think I'll look for some more opportunities to hear professional storytellers. There's just some kind of innate purity to the art of storytelling. There's an intimacy to the stories that you don't find in the other forms of communication (novels, plays, movies, artwork).

Here are some links to Sid Lieberman telling The Telltale Heart by Poe. There's a video here, and just the audio here.

What a week!

There are a lot of changes these days. It seems that everything's happening all at once (except the birth of the new baby, thank goodness). Last weekend Dad and I rearranged the furniture, but we left everything else strewn about. At the beginning of the week Kristin picked most things up, and generally created order out of chaos.

Monday was Parents' Orientation Day at Kathryn's new pre-school. She's attending "Joyful Noise" pre-school at the local Presbyterian church on M-W-F afternoons. On that first day, I think Kristin and I were more nervous than she was. Despite being an "only child," Kathryn had no trouble jumping right into the fray with the kids.

Starting next week, Kathryn will have dance class on Tuesday mornings. But we were still busy, because Kristin's parents dropped by on Tuesday to spend the night on their way to Michigan. McHenry was a bit out of their way, but it was nice of them to stop by while they were in Illinois.

Wednesday was Kathryn's official First Day of School, and my mom came up from Joliet to help Kristin paint Kathryn's room (pink, of course). I came home for lunch to wish Kathryn well for her first day, and I admit to being a little sentimental. My little girl's going to school now! It's just another of those little steps towards independence.

Wednesday night was the first night for AWANA at our church. We decided to let Kathryn try it and see if she's ready for it. Technically AWANA starts at Kindergarten, but I think they'll make an exception for Kathryn. Everyone at church knows her, and the AWANA staff had already unofficially suggested that we should try to enroll Kathryn. Plus, since I've been looking to get involved with another ministry at church, I offered my help. They immediately sent Kathryn downstairs with the other kids, and they put me to work outside with the campfire. There were already four youth out there, and they didn't seem to need the help. But they made me feel very welcome, and Kathryn and I both had an incredible evening.

Thursday is now our only day of the week without any scheduled activities. Mom and Kristin continued painting Kathryn's room, and Kathryn slept in the "playroom" on the air mattress (which she absolutely loved)!

Today Kathryn went back to school, and I think she's starting to get the hang of it. Or... at least I'm getting used to the idea. :-) I'm just glad we have a three-day weekend to recover from all these upheavals. As long as nothing blows up over the weekend, I should be ready to face the world again on Tuesday.

For now, I'm gonna play some much-needed World of Warcraft. Next time I'll have to tell you about yesterday's trip to Evanston, and about the cute, but sappy romance movie I finished watching last night.

Moving Day (kinda)

Kristin and I decided that we're going to stay in our little house for another year. We're gonna build up a little more equity, finish Kristin's student loan, pay off some of the bills from my surgery, and try again next year. So, obviously, we needed to do a serious re-organization in order to make room for Baby Howk.

To that end, I enlisted my Dad's assistance today. He drove up here this morning, and we spent the day moving furniture from room to room. The "master plan" is to make the computer room into a playroom, so we can give Kathryn some place to keep her toys. The kids will both sleep in Kathryn's room (we'll see if it works). We'll have to be flexible on that one: maybe allowing Kathryn to sleep in a sleeping bag or on the couch once in a while (which she enjoys anyway).

In order to make room in the computer room, we moved the bookshelves into the front room, and the computers into the master bedroom. Moving the computers was our biggest challenge. Neither my Dad nor I are "skilled" electricians. We can set up a computer in no time, but when it comes to running wires and crimping connectors, we're lost. We needed to move the cable modem from the computer room all the way to the other side of the house, through the crawl space.

So we examined the wires, and considered our options. We finally decided to use the existing cable modem coax wire (if it would stretch far enough). But that would require us to cut off the existing connector, strip the wire, and crimp a new connector onto it. After a trip to Radio Shack, and after spending some joint-numbing minutes in the crawl space, we began our "delicate" work of adding the new connector.

Once we fixed it up, we obviously wanted to see if it would work. All of the computer parts were still in the computer room. So I grabbed a power cord out of the jumble of cords, and rushed to see if our wiring job held good. We plugged it in, and after a few breathless moments, both the "Power" light and the "Cable" light came on. Success!

Now, if you have ever had to pick one power cord out of a tangled mess of cords, you might be able to anticipate what happened next. In my rush to test the coax, I paid insufficient attention to both the precise voltage of my power cord (12 V), and the precise power tolerance of my modem (10 V). Thus, ironically, while congratulating ourselves on successfully moving the cable modem, my father and I heard a dreadful "pop". Immediately, we saw (and smelled) smoke issuing from inside the cable modem!

Surprisingly, once I found the correct power cord, the modem still works. But just to be on the safe side, we're having Comcast bring us another one on Thursday. In the meantime, we just won't leave it plugged in overnight: we'd hate to have an electrical fire on our hands!

But all in all, Dad and I had a very successful day. And it was great fun to be able to spend the whole day with him -- he always cracks me up!

Remembering Laura Smith

Today we attended the funeral for Laura Smith, an 81 year-old woman who attended our church. She is survived by her husband Lon, and her three children, Michael, Tom, and Patty. I wanted to share a few thoughts about them.

I didn't know Laura very well. We met Lon and Laura the first day we came to visit the McHenry EFC. They were standing in the foyer, greeting everyone who came in. I later discovered that they'd been the greeters for three years. They would continue as the greeters for the next four and a half years (to the present day). For the first two years Lon couldn't remember my name, but he kept trying. I think he still calls Kristin "Christian", but I'm not sure. Then we'd walk over and say hello to Laura. She started losing her eyesight a few years ago, but she still smiled as much as ever. I think she took her cues from Lon's voice, because as soon as he said, "Hello Mike!" Laura extended her hand.

During the service, they could sometimes be found snoozing in the fourth or fifth row. But I don't think they missed a single service in the time we've been there. Even when Laura was in the hospital, Lon would still try to be in church. Last Sunday (the Sunday after Laura died), Lon wasn't there when the service started. Our church chairman announced Laura's passing, and a few minutes later Lon arrived with his son, Tom. Even now it brings tears to my eyes, remembering him walking in.

Anyway, a few months after we started attending the church, Lon called us out of the blue and asked if we'd like to go "out on his boat". Since neither Kristin nor I are very sociable, and we tend to be uncomfortable around the river, we declined. Little did we know that Lon could be very persistent. He called again the next week, and the next week. We finally accepted (along with a two year-old Kathryn) and out we went.

I didn't know what to expect. After all, Lon was in his early 80s, and I figured we'd just float around on the river for a few hours. I was sorely mistaken. Lon likes speed. He especially likes racing other boats on the river. And on that trip I discovered that there aren't many boats that can beat him on the river either. I'd never traveled that fast (over 80 mph) on water before. My favorite memory was of a race against a boat of young adults (early 20s). We were slowly driving through the "no-wake" area when Lon leaned over and said, "These kids behind us are going to pass us as soon as we get to open water." Sure enough, when the river opened up, they zoomed past. Lon let them get about 50 yards ahead before he punched it. I'll never forget the looks on their faces as we zipped past them. They were very good-natured about it; they cheered us on as we flew by. :-)

And that was pretty much the only time I saw either of them outside of church. Remember, I said I didn't know them very well. So why has her death affected me so much? I don't really know. I just know that I'm very sad for Lon, because he hasn't had to live without Laura since they were married 61 years ago. I can't even imagine what he must be going through. He's the sweetest guy you'd ever meet, and it pains me to see him hurting like this. So if you remember Lon over the next few days or weeks, please pray for him and for his family.

Garbage Day Again

Clearly Kathryn intends to make "taking out the garbage" a part of her weekly chores. She's very good at doing her chores when either Kristin or I are involved. But getting her to do her own chores is very trying.

This is an earlier picture of Kathryn "helping" with the garbage a few years ago. I weathered considerable light-hearted criticism because of this picture: foremost being the accusations of "slave-driver". Thus I have not yet captured a picture of Kathryn wheeling the recycle bin (almost taller than she is) out to the curb. But she takes great pride in her accomplishments, and I'll do almost anything to make her happy... even if it involves giving her some extra chores (strange though that sounds).

Falling Behind on my Movies

I'm falling way behind on my movie reviews, so I'm going to play "catch-up" tonight. I finally saw "Edward Scissorhands" but it didn't really grab me. I think it was a bit too heavy-handed for me, and the comedy was too monotonous. (After all, how many different jokes can you tell about a guy who has scissors for hands?) I think, if Edward had been a more talkative character, he could have added some much-needed witty dialog. I much prefer Burton's "Big Fish," which is very similar to Scissorhands in many respects. But Big Fish adds several extra interesting characters (like the twins, Danny DeVito as the circus ringleader, and Steve Buscemi as the poet). Plus the main character (played by Ewan McGregor) has a wry sense of humor lacking in Edward Scissorhands. If you're in the mood for a quirky dramacomedy, check out Big Fish.

I also had a chance to see "The Illusionist" (with Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti -- not to be confused with "The Prestige" with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman). A bit slow, but I absolutely loved it! It's a fairly standard love story (peasant boy falls in love with noble girl; fast-forward 15 years; noble girl engaged to wed evil prince; peasant boy returns to thwart evil prince's wedding plans; etc.) But about midway through, the story turns into a sort of mystery/political-thriller. The title derives from the fact that the peasant boy has become a famous illusionist, and supposedly all of the magic tricks were actually being performed at the time the movie takes place (1900's Vienna). Unfortunately, some of the visual effects are a bit too obvious, leading us to believe that our illusionist actually possesses supernatural powers. I was caught up in the story immediately, and the ending neatly tied up all of the loose ends. Very highly recommended!

Garbage Day

Every morning, Kathryn sees me off to work. Kristin's normally still in bed when I leave, but Kathryn always wants to be out of bed before I leave. If she doesn't wake up before I do, it's my job to wake her up. This morning, Kathryn came into our bedroom before either Kristin or I awoke. She was very excited because (as she said), "Guess what? It's Tuesday!!"

"OK? What does that mean?" I asked.

"Tomorrow is Wednesday!!!" she announced

So I wondered aloud, "And why is that important?"

"Because Wednesday is garbage day. I want to get dressed first-thing in the morning to help you take out the garbage."

Now normally on Wednesday mornings, she watches me take out the garbage. But because she's still in her pajamas (or, as is more customary, in her underwear) I don't have the time to wait for her to get dressed so she can "help" me.

I didn't give it any more thought during the day. But as I was coming home from a meeting at church, the sight of my neighbors' garbage cans reminded me of Kathryn's announcement this morning. So I asked Kristin if Kathryn had mentioned anything more about "helping" me the next morning. Kristin told me that, before Kathryn went to bed, she announced her intention of getting dressed immediately the next morning. She even asked Kristin to lay out a pair of pants for her, and to let her sleep in a t-shirt. I adore my little helper!

Payton's Birthday

Kathryn and I went down to Joliet on Saturday for my niece, Payton's, 3rd birthday (Terra's youngest daughter). It was nice to see everyone again, even though I didn't know half the people there. Obviously Scott's side of the family was there, so I was already at a disadvantage. And I can't really recognize many of my cousins on Pat's side of the family either, because I don't see them all that often. Add to that the fact that most of them are married, with children, and I was lucky to know about 25% of the attendees. But that didn't really matter, because we were all just playing with the kids anyway.

Terra and Scott put up one of those big inflatable "moon walk" things. I don't have any experience with those things, but this one looked really neat. There was a big slide inside, and the kids were reaching some incredible velocities by using blankets to zoom down. I tried it only once, and I found out why the "Rules for Safe Use" warned against letting any part of your body touch the slide without a blanket. I climbed to the top with Payton and Kathryn. I sat on the blanket, and they sat on my lap. I was unprepared for the speed of our descent, and that (plus their weight) caused me to lose my balance temporarily. I used my right elbow to right myself, and immediately regretted it. It suddenly felt as though my flesh was being burned completely off my elbow. I'm exaggerating a bit, but it still hurt a lot. When we stopped, Kathryn and Payton grabbed the blanket and went up for another run. I just laid there for a moment...

One thing I pride myself on: I'm pretty good at buying gifts for my nieces and nephews (probably because I'm still, mentally, about 10 years old). In this case, I had Kathryn to help me. I asked Kathryn to choose between some stuffed animals, and an animal hospital (with pretend medical tools, three little animals, and a little place to house them). She chose the animal hospital. When Payton opened her gifts, she kept going back to our little animal hospital, and asking Terra to open it for her. It took us a while to get her to pay attention to opening the rest of her gifts. Score one point for Uncle Michael and Cousin Kathryn!

Who pays for political stupidity? We do.

Here are a couple of excerpts from a story on gamepolitics.com about Blagojevich's failed attempt to regulate the sale of violent video games:

$510,528.64: the amount the State of Illinois must reimburse the video game industry for legal fees incurred fighting Gov. Rod Blagojevich's failed video game law, ruled unconstitutional by a Federal District Court judge last December.

"Judge Kennelly's rulings send two irrefutable messages," said ESA boss Doug Lowenstein. "Not only are efforts to ban the sale of violent video games clearly unconstitutional, they are a waste of taxpayer dollars. The sad fact is that the State of Illinois knew this law was unconstitutional from the beginning. Taxpayers have a right to know that over half a million of their dollars and countless government hours were thrown away in this fruitless effort."

If you want to read the whole article, it's near the bottom of this page.

Loosening Summer's Hold

While driving home from work today, I witnessed the first signs of Summer's Defeat: three dead leaves fell onto my car from the overhanging tree! Oh glorious day!

Obviously, I love autumn! And I absolutely can't stand summer. I don't understand it. Most people seem to enjoy the sweltering heat, the annoying bugs, and the high pollen count. But I am not one of them. I prefer the crisp, cool air, the Holiday preparations, the smell of burning leaves, and pumpkin pie.

Therefore, I'm trying to scare up interest in a "Welcome to Autumn" party on September 22 (Lord of the Rings fans will understand the reference). Jeff has already been asked to find the biggest free-standing tree he can for the event. Everyone will be asked to bring some food to share, and a "mathom". For those who don't know, Tolkien defines a mathom like this:

"Anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a mathom. Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms, and many of the presents that passed from hand to hand were of that sort"

If you have any other ideas to incorporate into the inaugural event, let me know. It should be a blast! So come and enjoy the arrival of autumn with us. More details to follow as the date approaches.

New York Yankees vs. Chicago White Sox

On Monday, Amber announced that she was the winner of an office drawing for four tickets to the Yankees/White Sox game last night (Tuesday). So, I called Kristin to ask if she'd like to go. Unfortunately, she had a Women's Ministry meeting last night, but she authorized Kathryn and me to go. Bill and Amber were both going to come too. But since Bill wasn't going to be able to leave work until the start of the game, we decided to drive separately.

So Kathryn and I arrived at "U.S. Cellular Field" at about 6:30, and found our seats (on the main level, third-base side, only seventeen rows from the field)! Kathryn slept a bit on the way down, so I wasn't too worried about missing her bedtime. The game started at 7:05. Kathryn understands enough baseball terminology to follow some of the plays, but she was much more interested in the food, of course. Earlier in the day, we found out at the allergist's that Kathryn is definitely allergic to peanuts, so we avoided them completely. But she enjoyed a lot of the other "junk" food at the park. Her favorite was a Lemon Ice at the end of the night.

I was very glad the White Sox managed to hit a couple home runs, so Kathryn could see the celebratory fireworks. Round about the eighth inning, Kathryn asked if we could leave. We still didn't get home until about 11:00. She enjoyed her "first professional baseball game" (as she puts it).

Lovie Smith's son on the TIU coaching staff

I just found this article on the Chicago Bears website. I guess there's another small Bears connection to our alma mater.

By the way, we're planning to go see the Homecoming game this year on October 7th. I'm not sure what other events they've planned, but since this is "technically" the ten-year reunion for many of us, I figured we may as well stop by.

The Return of Big Momma

Remember Big Momma (the big spider who successfully defends our front door each summer)? You may remember that last month I tried to relocate her, so I could get rid of the unsightly webs she places all around our front porch. Well, she's back!

I picked Kathryn up tonight after her trip to Iowa. But when we got home, there was Big Momma sitting on the house, right by the walkway to the porch. I wondered if she held any animosity towards me. After all, I had forced her out of her comfy little corner by the door. Sure enough, I could just barely make out the thin strands of webbing stretched between the house and the porch railing -- we'd have to walk through them to get to the front door. I foresaw hundreds of tiny filaments clinging to my body; webbing streaming out behind me. And on the end: Big Momma, crawling inexorably towards the creature who dared disturb her lair...

I panicked. I ran through the web, frantically chopping through the web with my arms. If you've seen Toy Story, picture Buzz Lightyear's "Karate Chop Action", and you'll have a good idea how silly I must have looked. I figured that if she attached herself to my arms, at least I'd have a chance to fling her into the yard when she tried to sink her fangs into me.

Of course, she just sat there, laughing at me. So I got Kathryn out of the car (I didn't want Kathryn "endangered" during my mad dash through the web), and we went inside. I wonder if I'll have to go through the same thing every night...

Kathryn to Iowa

Kathryn stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell in Iowa this weekend. We chose the Culvers in Rock Falls, IL as our meeting place (since it's roughly two hours from both McHenry and Iowa City). I don't have many details, but I know she went to the Childrens' Museum, to a Hooverball game (don't ask), to a concert, and to some fireworks. She also "helped" to prepare the communion for Sunday morning.

OK; I just got some details. She's supposed to be asleep, but she came into the computer room as I was typing. She wanted to show me a "pinch" on her hand. I guess she was racing somewhere with Grandma, and she (somehow) pinched her hand in the closet door (I think). I just typed in what she told me, so here it is:

I had my hand out. I was trying to stop myself from sliding so I wouldn't get pinched. I didn't want to get pinched, which means I didn't want to get hurt. But I got pinched anyway. And Grandma decided to put ice on it, but that made it hurt even more! It must have been a really tough pinch if putting ice on it made it hurt even more.

So there you have it. Straight from Kathryn herself. Now she's going to go show Mommy her "tough pinch".

Competition

There is a really cool web game that's going around at my workplace. It's called simply Words, and it's great fun. Tonight I reached my personal best of 1230. It's basically a typing game. Words scroll in from the right, and you need to type in the complete word before it reaches the left side.

Manyof you have a very competitive streak in you. Who can beat me? I'm sure Jeffrey could do it, and maybe Amber (especially with her new data entry training). Randy... you'll probably want to sit this one out. My old nemesis; how are your typing skills? And what about you, Mom? Send me your top scores, and we'll see. :-)

Saturday at the Enchanted Castle

I had an extrememly hard time deciding what to do with Kathryn last Saturday. It was another ultra-hot day, so I didn't want to spend too much time outdoors. I thought about taking her to the pool, but I knew we wouldn't be able to spend enough time there to fill the entire day.

But then I remembered that the Carlisle's sent us a list of places around the area where they often take their kids. Unfortunately, that was one of the few e-mails they sent to my work e-mail address. I.S. has been regularly purging that stuff, so that e-mail is now beyond recall.

However, while hunting in vain for that e-mail, I came across another of their suggestions: the Enchanted Castle in Lombard (basically a glorified Chuck E Cheese). So that's where we went.

I told Kathryn that I was taking her to "a surprise" for lunch, and then going to Joliet for dinner. She tried to trick me into giving away the "surprise". First she asked if we were going to Joliet for lunch too. Then she asked if she'd ever been there before. Finally she said, "Daddy, what if I don't like what they have to eat? You should tell me where we're going so I'll know if I'll like their food." I assured her that she'd like it and just kept driving. Finally she tried the "sad eyes" treatment on me: "Daddy, I'm scared because I don't know where we're going. You should tell me so I won't be scared."

Of course, once we arrived, she was amazed! We were able to make our favorite kind of pizza there (pepperoni, black olives, and sweet BBQ sauce). Much better than the stuff Chuck E Cheese tries to pass off as pizza. Then we hit the miniature golf. She's getting much better with the putter; she doesn't just push the ball around anymore, and she's starting to figure out how to line it up for a "good" shot. The mini golf had a "haunted house" theme, so they had a bunch of "black light" all over the place. She'd never seen a "black light" before, so she was preoccupied with her glowing socks and shoes.

Then she went to the kids climbing area, and spent a good hour bouncing around and playing "Super Heroes" with the other kids. After that, she beat me at air hockey for a while (but they were close games). :-)

The last thing we did before we left was the go-cart. I'd never driven one of those things before, but we had a great time. Kathryn claims that she doesn't like "fast rides", but she always loves the faster stuff at amusement parks. So we both had a fantastic time!

When we left, Kathryn made me promise to bring her back some day. It's quite a drive to get down there, but we'll definitely add it to our list of "Cool Places to take Kathryn".

Sagebrush Acquisition

This acquisition obviously affects other people besides just the employees of both companies. Here's a link to a news story from a local newspaper in Caledonia, MN (where one of the Sagebrush offices is based). Some quotes that kinda made me sad for them:

The number of Sagebrush Corp. employees in Caledonia, Minn., has fallen sharply since Sagebrush bought Caledonia-based Winnebago Software Co. in January 2000. Now the future of most of the remaining employees in Caledonia appears to be up in the air. Sagebrush, based in Minneapolis, has sold its library automation business to a competitor, Follett Software Co. of McHenry, Ill.

Caledonia Mayor Michael Morey said he did not know what effect the sale might have on local employment. "“I would hope they would find the employees here are hard working"” and remain in Caledonia, he said.

I try to take Romans 12:15 very seriously, so please pray for all the folks who are going to be affected by our acquisition. Even the people who might not be obvious (like the residents of the little town of Caledonia, MN).

Cellular Phones

There comes a moment in every cellular contract, when we as the consumers finally have the advantage: the day the contract runs out. At that blessed moment, we are free to take our business elsewhere, without the specter of "cancellation fees" hanging over us.

In our case, since we happen to like our cellular carrier (Cingular), we decided to pay them a visit to "upgrade" our phones. Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. In order to upgrade the phone, one must navigate carefully through the "sales pitch" minefield, as the sales associates try to convince one to:

1) Add new service
2) Add another line
3) Increase ones minutes

I found it particularly humorous when my salesman began his pitch: "You might be interested in adding a few more night/weekend minutes to your plan. You've only got 600 anytime minutes between the two phones." Remember that Cingular is the carrier that lets people "rollover" unused minutes from one month to the next. So I asked him, "How many rollover minutes do we have on our plan?" He checked the computer, then grinned and said, "I don't think you'll be needing any extra minutes... you've got over 8000 in there." He was a really good sport.

In all fairness...

In all fairness to Mr. James Newton Howard, I must slightly amend my review of "Lady in the Water." His score was, as always, superb! He has scored the last five Shyamalan movies, and they're all extremely well-done. The music was definitely the best part of the movie.

There! Now my conscience is clear.

Saturday Fun

Saturday was my "fun day" with Kathryn. First we went down to Wheeling to Pita Inn for lunch (one of our favorite places). Kathryn always gets the rice, and I always get the shawarma lunch with a bit of hummus. In order to get Kathryn to try the shawarma meat, I started calling it "sausage meat", and she's loved it ever since. Chris and I found Pita Inn back when we were both living much closer to Wheeling. We used to go there for supper every one or two weeks.

In fact, this Saturday we met "uncle" Chris and Emily there. They were in the middle of their own Daddy/Daughter weekend, since Mary and Nathan went out of town.

After that, Kathryn wanted to go to the park (since it was such a nice day). We went to a park in Arlington Heights which has a little playground. We heard some seagulls, and when we went to investigate, we found a little beach. We waded into the water a bit, and Kathryn had a blast running around in the sand and the water.

Then we ran some errands, played at the park a bit more, and went home.

Lady in the Water

Ick! I was decidedly unimpressed with Shyamalan's latest movie. As I sat through it, I found myself thinking, "If this story was in any way believable, I might really like this movie." Unfortunately, it was an almost nonsensical mash of strange creatures, bizarre "rules" (never explained), and overly gullible people.

But the two friends who went with me (Amber and Sadi) both loved it. As we talked about it afterwards, we decided that if you can really suspend your disbelief, you stand a good chance of enjoying the movie. If, however, you ever find yourself saying, "This is stupid," you may as well just leave the theater immediately (because it's only going to get worse). It didn't help that all of the characters seem to believe implicitly in this outlandish fairy tale. If they'd included a few scenes where the characters slowly came to belief, I might have been able to swallow it.

If you want to see a good Shyamalan movie about faith and destiny, go rent "Signs". But if you decide to see "Lady in the Water" anyway, try to suspend your disbelief. If you actually like the movie, please let me know. I hope I'm in the minority on this one... but I doubt it.

Seattle, Washington

Apparently this is the year for everyone to go to Seattle. Bill and Jen went there last month, the Carlisle's were just there a few weeks ago, and the Nelson's will be there next month. Everyone I know has told me that I should absolutely love Seattle (given my hatred of hot summer weather). I'd love to test this theory someday. Until then, I did a small bit of research on my own, with the help of weather.com.

I looked up the averages for both McHenry, IL and Seattle, WA. For temperature, Seattle wins easily. In McHenry we go from an average 28° high in January, all the way to a uncomfortably toasty 82° in July. Seattle has much more even temperatures: from 46° in December and January, to 76° in August.

Of course, the first thing people think of when they hear "Seattle" is "rain". Surprisingly, the average total precipitation for Seattle is only 37.07", compared with McHenry's 36.50". I can happily live with an extra half-inch of rain!

Someday we'll have to take a trip out there, just to see if everyone is right. But judging from the data, I'm not so sure I should go... I might never come back!

Trip to Shedd Aquarium

Last weekend, Kathryn and I were supposed to go camping with Bill, Jen, Amber, and Sarah. Fortunately, as last weekend was the hottest weekend of the summer, we decided to go down to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. We all met at the train station near Sarah's house. Kathryn and I had a momentary detour, after she uttered those words every parent dreads: "Daddy, I really have to go to the bathroom now!" At that point there's no reason to ask, "Why didn't you go before we left," but we all it do anyway.

We made it to the station in plenty of time, and 90 minutes or so later, we were in Union Station. I'd forgotten how cool that station looks. I normally take the Union Pacific Northwest line, which comes into the newer Ogilvie Center. Union Station is right next to my favorite building in the world: the Sears Tower. There was a time when I used to walk past Sears Tower every other Saturday, but I hadn't been back to Union Station in almost 14 years.

The aquarium was very nice. Kathryn and I both consider the penguins our favorite exhibit. We could watch them for hours. We also saw a few eels during feeding time. Unfortunately, only one of the eels actually ate anything: he snapped up everything they dropped into the tank before the other eel could react. Poor guy!

In the evening, we all came back up north and went to Gino's in Lake Zurich for dinner. Then Kathryn and I went down to Schaumburg, where we stayed for the night. We didn't get there until 11:00, and we didn't actually get to sleep until midnight or so. Kathryn wanted some "music" on, but since we didn't have a radio in the room, we turned on "Command Decisions" on History International. I figured she'd be so tired (and so bored) that she'd fall asleep instantly. Little did I know that "Command Decisions" includes a lot of multiple-choice military questions, which (for some reason) interested Kathryn very much.

The next day we went to Woodfield Mall for a while. I made another mistake by going into the Lego store with Kathryn. I didn't know they had a whole princess-themed set of Legos! "That was an important piece of information, wouldn't you say?" Fortunately, Kathryn doesn't often make a fuss about buying toys right away. She'll just calmly mention, "Daddy, maybe I could get this for my birthday or Christmas...?" in a cute little expectant tone.

Pride and Prejudice

The latest DVD to arrive in the mail was the new version of "Pride and Prejudice". I probably wouldn't have even considered watching it... except that Keira Knightley starred in it. But I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It had some very snappy dialog, and more than a little humor. I was pleasantly surprised that Dame Judi Dench was also in the movie. I always enjoy listening to her: she's got a tough, no-nonsense delivery that adds that little extra edge to all of her dialog.

The story seemed relatively straight-forward, so I'm sure they cut out a lot of detail from the book. Of course, never having read the novel, I have no idea what they changed in the movie. Still, even though it's a romance, I really enjoyed it.

Lady in the Water "First Listen"

I almost forgot! The guy who runs SoundtrackNet just added a "First Listen" for the "Lady in the Water" soundtrack (by James Newton Howard). He has 16 thirty-second clips from the soundtrack up at Soundtrack.net, along with a description of the music on each track. If you think I'm detailed about soundtrack music, you should check out Dan Goldwasser's site. He really knows soundtracks!

Interesting People

About a year ago, I started going to the local health club twice a week. And during that time, I learned a very important lesson. There are two places in the world where you should never, never, initiate a conversation with your fellow man, no matter how friendly you might wish to be: the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the health club locker room.

Now the DMV is a given -- everyone already knows what kind of crazy people live there. But never having been to the health club, I naively thought that it was possible to have a nice, friendly conversation. After many strange (one-sided) discussions involving: alien abductions, the inevitable Communist takeover of the United States, and the general unfairness of life, I decided to simply ignore everyone. The last straw was one poor guy who just wanted to tell his life story to someone... anyone! As it turns out, he was feeling depressed because some woman he barely knew filed for a restraining order against him. I told him, "Life really is unfair," and beat a hasty retreat.

Today, I accidentally spoke to someone. As I was just heading out of the locker room to begin my workout, a guy came in wearing a shirt which read (in HUGE letters), "Body Piercing saved my life!" My curiosity got the better of me, so I asked, pointing at his shirt, "How did that happen?" He said, "You need to read the back for it to make sense." On the back of his shirt was a picture of Jesus' nail-pierced hands.

Now, since I'm a believer, I thought that was a really creative shirt, and told him so. Unfortunately, like a good evangelist, he began to quote Scripture at me, attempting to convince me of my need for a Savior. I tried several different times to let him know that I was already a believer, but I think he was on auto-pilot.

First I tried the old standby of finishing the Bible quotes that he'd begin. So when he'd say, "The Bible says that 'He was wounded for our transgressions...'," I'd chime in with, "'... and bruised for our iniquities.'" Nope. He kept going.

So I told him, straight up, that I was a believer. No dice. I let him walk me through the four Spiritual Laws, proclaiming my assent to each point. No good.

By now, he was truly launched and well away. I started throwing the occasional "Amen" and "Yes Lord" into the conversation, thinking that some charismatic display was called for. Not good enough. I eventually escaped only by sticking my headphones on and shouting, "Well, I've had a wonderful chat with you, but I've gotta get to my workout now. See ya!"

Now I've gotta hand it to the guy. He was more bold with his faith than most people who call themselves Christian (including me). He seemed very concerned that I understood my need for a Savior. A bit over-zealous, obviously, but his heart was in the right place, and I admire him for that. So even though I can laugh at the experience, I wonder if he didn't have something to teach me about my own faith. Am I bold enough to present Christ to a stranger, just in casual conversation? All too often, I'm not. Maybe this was God's way of nudging me in the right direction. Tact definitely plays a part, but Christ still calls us to share our faith, wherever we are.

Pirates 2

Kristin and I saw Pirates 2 yesterday (my Mom and Frank were good enough to watch Kathryn for us). First of all, the reviewer I quoted a few days ago greatly overstated the movie's "scare" factor. There were a few really gross scenes, but nothing that was any more disgusting than the things that elementary-age boys will do in youth camps. There's no way I'd take Kathryn, because it's still really scary, and she doesn't like pirates enough to make the scares worthwhile. But somebody like Joshua (a soon-to-be six-year-old, who really likes pirates) might enjoy it... if his Mom and Dad see it first (so they know when to cover his eyes). (By the way, Happy Birthday to Joshua and Kristin, who share a July 12th birthday).

Though it pains me to say it (because I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Superman fan), Pirates is a far superior summer movie than Superman Returns. Superman would have done far better if it had been released around September or October (after the summer movies, but before the heavy Oscar contenders). It just takes itself too seriously for a big summer blockbuster.

Pirates 2, on the other hand, really impressed me. In a word, it was fun! It was the perfect movie for the season. And it had just enough depth to make me want to see it again. Elizabeth's character development near the end of the movie was perfect, the more so because it was foreshadowed earlier in the movie. Oh, and if you hate cliff-hangers, be warned that this film is an obvious setup for the inevitable third movie. I hope they filmed them both at the same time, because I don't want to have to wait years for the resolution!

Megan and Brad's Wedding!

I haven't been able to update my blog in a few days because we've been down in Joliet for my cousin Megan's wedding! We had a great time all weekend, and Kathryn was a wonderful flower-girl. I'll include a few pictures here on the blog, but for a bigger set, you can go here (they're very Kathryn-centric, of course).

We left Thursday afternoon after I came home from work (I only worked a half-day). We were staying with my Dad and Pat, so we first dropped our stuff off at their place. The rehearsal was at the church at 6:00. Kathryn had been anticipating her role ever since Megan asked her to do it, so she was very excited. The rehearsal was a bit of an anti-climax for her -- I think she expected it to be more dramatic somehow.

Then we followed everyone out to the rehearsal dinner at Brad's family's farm in Minooka. I hadn't been out that way since college; back when I had that creepy experience as a intern programmer at the family-owned locomotive company... but that's a story for another time. Brad's entire family is very hospitable. It felt very natural to spend time with them. Brad's nephew, Alex, was the ring-bearer, and even though he's four years older than Kathryn, he was a really good sport about keeping her occupied. Brad has attended many of our family-gatherings, and he's a very friendly person. I feel as though he's been a part of our family forever.

At the rehearsal dinner, Megan and Brad gave gifts to all the attendants. Megan gave Kathryn a cool little Barbie "Fairie-topia" toy (she said Kathryn could bring it with her to the wedding so she wouldn't be too bored). She also gave Kathryn a beautiful cross necklace to wear for the wedding (you can see it in some of the pictures). By the way, this was just one of the many examples of how well Megan planned her wedding. She was extremely thoughtful the entire weekend. I've never attended a wedding that was better planned than this one!

The day of the wedding, we ran into our first little snag. At first, Kathryn didn't want her hair done. But that minor problem was very quickly resolved. We developed a little mantra that we would mention whenever Kathryn looked like she was going to be obstinate. We'd ask, "Who's special day is it?" Then she'd answer, "Megan's." It was an easy way to remind Kathryn that she was there to make Megan's day special, not to whine about little things. And that was the only time Kathryn showed a hint of impatience with the wedding proceedings. She was very well-behaved all weekend, and we were all very proud of her.

I hadn't seen the full-effect of Kathryn's dress, her hair, the necklace, and the flower basket until I saw her coming down the aisle. No, I didn't start thinking about walking her down the aisle someday (those thoughts came later, at the reception). But she was so beautiful! She walked very slowly, placing a petal with each step; first with the right hand, then with the left. She had a very determined look about her; very focused on her job. When she got to the front, she just walked back over to the fourth pew to sit with us, and that was it.

Unfortunately, we forgot the "fairie-topia" toy. But fortunately, a Catholic service is much more interactive than our dry Protestant services. In our Protestant churches, we might have an awesome worship time at the beginning, but after that we just sit around and listen to someone else talk. In the Catholic Mass, there are all sorts of responsive readings, candles being lit, elements being prepared, bells ringing, alter boys carrying things around, kneeling, standing, etc. Kathryn was enthralled the entire time!

After the wedding, as with most weddings, the picture-taking was a bit tiring. Kathryn's little smile kept looking more and more forced with each picture. By the time we went outside for the outdoor pictures, she barely acknowledged the photographer anymore.

But she was really looking forward to the reception. She'd been told that there would be dancing, and she couldn't wait to show everyone her moves! She had us all cracking up! One bridesmaid in particular (Emily, I think, pictured behind Kathryn here) really took Kathryn under her wing. I was delighted to see how friendly everyone was to Kathryn, and how they went out of their way to make sure that she had a wonderful time. As you can see in the pictures, Kathryn absolutely loved the dancing!

It was at the reception, when Megan and Uncle Bill were dancing, that I finally remembered that I'll probably be in Uncle Bill's shoes in twenty-odd years. Not soon enough to worry about, obviously, but still soon enough to make me get all sentimental. So when a slow song came on, and Kathryn took a break from her frenetic dancing, I picked her up for a little dance.

Trying out G-Mail

Google is expanding again, this time into the Web mail arena. Like yahooMail and hotMail, Google has a Beta version of G-Mail. I'm trying it out, and so far it looks really sweet! I'm not sure yet if I'm going to make it my primary e-mail or not. But just in case, if you think about it when you're sending me an e-mail at the normal address, could you also send a copy to MervinBunter@gmail.com? Thanks!

Meeting New People

Bill and Jen invited us over to their place for our annual 4th of July Cookout At Bill and Jen's. They also invited a family from their Sunday School class. It was really great to be able to meet them. They have four children, all four-years-old or younger. Since Kristin and I are currently the only couple up here who have children (at least of those friends that we see on a regular basis), it was a great thrill to be able to spend time with another family with kids. It also helps to give Kathryn some time with other kids her age.

Today, I was again amazed at Kathryn's willingness to discuss overly analytical topics with me. We talked about:
1. Whether "zero" was a number, since it means "nothing" (Kathryn asked this one).
2. Whether it was correct to ask for a "sip" of ice cream, if it's already melted (I asked this one).

I think we decided that, yes, zero is still a number; and that you can ask for a sip of ice cream, but only if it's completely melted in a bowl, not in a cone.

Looking Forward to Pirates...

The new Pirates movie is coming out next weekend, and it's going to be great fun... but according to at least one early review, it's not for the faint of heart. I know at least one family who will probably want to see it on opening weekend. So, just as a word of warning, I wanted to share some excerpts from one reviewer. He feels that the PG-13 rating doesn't quite go far enough:

...parents whose tiny tots are eager to see this movie ought to know what's in store for them. Here there be monsters. And not the happy, fluffy Pixar kind either; not even the scary but relatively agreeable skeletons from the first Pirates movie. This time around, they're the stuff of real nightmares: oozy Lovecraftian terrors borne in dark drowned places undisturbed by the tread of man. They scuttle with alien purpose across landscapes doused in seaweed and slime. Their visages speak to every goose walking over your grave, every clammy hand on your shoulder in the dark, everything that makes you close your eyes and pray to make it all go away. While the special effects that create them are both impressive and believable, their presence is not for the faint of heart. Nor are the film's more mundane examples of depravity: torture, cannibalism, decorative body parts, and one Mickey Mouse-approved instant where a raven plucks a man's wandering eye from its socket. Rarely has the PG-13 rating seemed more extreme (this film really deserves an R and shame on the MPAA for again caving in like the tools they so clearly are). Moms and dads looking for a fun family outing should give serious pause before exposing their kids to these, the Happiest Old Ones on Earth.

Of course, since I haven't seen the movie, I can't verify any of this for myself. Kristin and I are definitely going to see it very soon after release, but it's definitely not a "family" film. You can read the whole review here.