The end of the semester crunch

The CFO’s semester wrapped up last week, leaving finals as the only thing standing between her winter break.  That meant that the weekend was full of grading papers and preparing the final exams.  Despite that pile of work to do, shopping for a Christmas tree took top priority on Saturday morning.

Since we now typically travel over the holiday, having a real tree isn’t ideal.  I grew up with a real tree (often times one way too big for the room it was in) and I really, really, really didn’t want to go artificial.  I enjoy the “hunt” for a tree and love the smell of a tree inside the house.  Last year, we were really busy and we decided to try not having any tree at all, but it didn’t really feel like Christmas without one.  We literally had a pile of presents in the living room without a tree. 

So, I finally came around to the see the benefits of the artificial tree:  No watering and we don’t have to worry about it dropping all of its needles while we are out of town.  We went out shopping for an artificial tree and found a contender at our first stop.  We liked one that was on display, and it was on sale for over half off, so we went to see how many they had in boxes.  Zero, zip, nada.  I went and asked a sales associate if they had any more in the back and he said, “No, all of the trees that we have are right there.”  His manager overheard the conversation and said, “I think we got one more of those in last night, call to the back and see if it is back there.”  Sure enough it was.  We asked if they would hold it for us, but they said that they couldn’t hold it for us.

I told the CFO that we typically always circle back to the first thing that we saw when we go shopping around town for something specific, so let’s just buy it and if we find something better, we can bring it back and get a refund.  With that, we bought the tree, threw it in the back seat of the accord (the box just barely fit) and continued to shop at the other stores on her list of places to check.  After visiting the other stores, we agreed that we got the best looking, most reasonably priced option at the first store, so we took it home.  Surprise, surprise, we bought the first tree that we found.

We got it set up Saturday afternoon while watching the college championship football games.  We woke up to snowfall on Sunday morning, so I decided to run to the grocery store and do our shopping before the weather got too bad.  It was a wise call as it snowed off and on through the rest of the day.  The CFO stayed inside and did her work while I took care of a few tasks around the house and the garage… and a few hours later the weekend was over.

We woke up to cold temps on Thursday morning:

 

Turkey week

Since our original plans to go on a cruise for the thanksgiving holiday had to be changed when my mom broke her ankle, the CFO and I went with plan B: spend the holiday week in Georgia at my parents’ house.  We already had plane tickets to fly to Atlanta (we were going to drive to Tampa with my parents to get on the cruise ship) and delta wanted a whopping $200/ticket change fee to change our tickets (plus any difference in the actual fare price).  So, not wanting the tickets to go to waste, we headed south.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t much warmer in GA than IL, but it was nice to see trees, rolling hills and roads that weren’t straight for miles and miles.  While we were there, we had the opportunity to do some holiday shopping, eat at some of our favorite restaurants, and, more importantly, catch up with a few friends. On Sunday, the CFO dropped me off at a restaurant to eat lunch with friends and she went shopping.  After lunch, I went go karting with a couple friends at the new Atlanta Motorsports Park near Dawsonville.

Before we got in the karts, the guy managing the track told us that we could go flat out up the hill and into turn one… However, even after three 8 minute sessions, I could not  get myself to fly up the hill and dive into turn 1 without lifting off the throttle.  This was just one of the reasons that I ended up being a few seconds slower per lap than my friends, but I had fun none the less.  While I enjoy driving, there is a reason why I’m not a professional race car driver…

After karting, my friend dropped me off at the outlet mall to meet the CFO.  We worked on crossing some people off of our Christmas list and then went out for dinner at Macaroni Grill, a restaurant that we like but don’t have near our home.  Since our anniversary was the next day (7 years!), we said that it was our anniversary dinner. 

Of course, this did not stop me from giving the CFO a hard time the following night, when she met one of her Athens, GA friends for dinner on our actual anniversary.  “How could you go out to dinner with one of your friends on our anniversary?” I asked.  I am planning on continue to use this for many, many years to come: “Remember when you went out with a friend on our 7th anniversary?”

While in Athens, we also spent a lot of time hanging out with my sister and her family… most of that time was spent eating, playing games or wrestling with her two sons.  It is crazy how fast those boys have grown (turning 4 and 8 this month), but the fact that we hadn’t seen them since last Christmas probably amplified that.  I am usually very camera happy but I didn’t take a single photograph on this trip… I’m not sure what happened, I guess I wasn’t in the mood.  So, I don’t have any pictures to accent this post… sorry.

Bad breaks

The CFO was in Virginia last week for a conference and then she stayed through the weekend so that she could attend a wedding shower for her brother and his bride-to-be.  I had plans to take care of some small projects on Saturday and Sunday, but I didn’t quite plan for how the weekend played out.  Saturday morning started out very productive, I dropped off a pile of old electronics at a recycling event, went to the grocery store, ate a few donuts, and ran a couple other errands.  I got home in time to watch my bulldogs play auburn… and this is where the weekend started to get crazy.

First off, the game was crazy.  The bulldogs played horribly for the first 3 quarters and then woke up at the end of the game.  I'm not even sure why I kept watching it, but I did.  Then the dawgs came charging back and took a one point lead with 1:45 left in the game.  I couldn’t believe that they had managed to pull off such a comeback.  Now, all the defense had to do was stand strong for less than two minutes.  “Come on defense!!!” I yelled at the TV.  And for the first three downs, they did just that.  They actually forced auburn backwards and we had them at 4^th and long, just one more down to hold them…  and then it happened, the Auburn QB hurled a hail Mary pass towards a receiver who had 3 defenders around him. 

One of the bulldog defenders jumped up to intercept the pass and another bulldog defender knocked the ball out of his hands... and up into the air… and… the ball dropped right in front of the auburn receiver who bobbled the ball and then somehow managed to gain control of it and jog into the end zone for a touchdown.   (insert your best slow motion “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” Sound here, because that was me yelling at the tv again) That score gave Auburn the lead with less than a minute on the clock.  Georgia did an admirable job of pushing the ball down the field but ran out of time before scoring again.  So close, but no cigar.

As if watching all of that unfold wasn’t enough, I received a text from my sister at the 1:45 mark in the above story, saying that she was at the hospital with our mom, who had fallen and hurt her ankle.  Like any good son, I am always concerned when I hear that one of my parents is in the hospital… but this time I was especially concerned because the CFO and I were supposed to be going on a cruise with my parents in exactly 1 week!  Was this a minor ankle sprain or was it something more?

It turns out that walking to the mailbox is very dangerous, as she managed to BREAK her ankle in two places.  My mind started to quickly evaluate the upcoming cruise trip… lots of walking (on a moving ship), lots trips up and down to different levels of the ship, and relatively small bathrooms and showers… this did not sound good for someone in a cast with a broken ankle.  Worse yet, we were well within the “lose 100% of the money that you paid for the cruise if you don’t go” period because we were only 1 week away from departure.  Oh crap.  I quickly understood why they offer trip insurance, which we have never purchased in the past.  Because, “What are the odds that something happens?” 

I decided to call the Royal Caribbean 800 number to see if there might be an option for us.  Perhaps there was a room with a tub available that they could move mom and dad into.  After a quick summary of what had happened, the phone rep started by checking if there were any handicap rooms or suites with tubs available.  Nope.  She then offered that we could change one person in that room, so Dad could bring someone else on the cruise.  I laughed.  I don’t think that would go over too well with Mom.  I asked if we could change both people, but she said no, at least one original person has to remain in the room.  Strange rule, but OK. 

I then asked if there was a chance that we could reschedule the cruise… She noted that we didn’t have the trip insurance, which didn't help my case.  However, she then noticed that this would be our 4th cruise with their company, so she went ahead and put me on hold so she could talk with someone else about it.  After a few minutes she came back with this offer, “We will give you 24 hours to pick another cruise of equal or greater value that leaves within the next six months and we will transfer 100% of what you paid towards that trip.” 

I’ll honestly say that I was shocked by the offer.  I figured we’d lose 25%-50% of what we paid if they let us move the trip.  It is nice to see that a big company like Royal Caribbean isn’t 100% set in their rules and that they realize that accidents happen. I told her that the offer was more than I could ask for and that we’d check back in with them on Sunday. 

I woke up on Sunday morning to the sound of howling winds.  The online weather info said we had 35 mph sustained winds with gusts up to 50 mph.  I spent most of the morning researching cruise options and found a few options that might work around the CFO's schedule.  Around 11:00 am, it started to get really dark outside and the wind picked up even more speed.  Then the CFO texted saying that the ISU info system had just sent her a tornado warning text.  I turned on the weather channel and they were talking about central Illinois, pointing out several actively rotating storm cells within 45 miles of us.  I spent the next hour watching the TV and looking out the window at a serious line of storms moving across Bloomington, just to our west.

 

Yes, I probably should have gone to the basement, but I’m a bit of a weather junky, so I just stood there and watched the front pass through.  Luckily, we didn’t have any tornados in Blo/No, however Washington, IL, just 30 miles west of us, wasn’t so lucky.  This got me thinking that we really need to enclose a portion of our basement so that we have a safe place to go in the event that we need to take shelter.  Since our basement has 3 big, west facing windows, I don’t think that it is the safest place, but it is our only option right now. 

Then the power went out and stayed out for the next 5 hours.  I spent the afternoon on the phone sorting out the details of rescheduling our trip… which eventually sent me out into the garage so that I could plug my phone into one of our cars so it could recharge.  Note to self:  If the weather predictions say a storm is coming, make sure that your cell phone is charged!

This is a photo of a neighborhood in Washington, IL, just 30 miles from our town, after a tornado on Sunday...  Scary.

Happy Veteran's Day

A few weeks ago, the wind snapped the metal flag holder that I had attached to one of the columns on the front of our house.  It wasn't a huge priority at the time, so I didn't worry too much about it.  Fixing it finally pushed it's way to the top of my to-do list last weekend since today is Veteran's Day.  I had to be able to put our flag out on Veteran's Day!

I picked up a new mount Saturday night and planned on installing it on Sunday. As is typical on weekends, we got busy finishing other projects (things that had to be completed before the CFO heads out of town again) and I didn't get around to installing the mount until the sun was starting to  drop below the horizon Sunday evening.  The loss of daylight savings time sucks... I do not like it getting dark at 5 pm! 

Of course a simple task of undoing four screws and replacing the old with the new wasn't going to be that easy.  After taking off the old mount, I realized that the screws that came with the new one were smaller in diameter than the ones that I used on our old mount, so they wouldn't tighten up in the existing holes.  No problem, I thought, I'll just use the old screws.  Wrong... The new base plate is thicker than the old one, so the screws that I had used before were too short for the new base.  Seriously?  I quickly sorted through my container of extra screws and found that I didn't have 4 that were the right size with matching heads on them.  Of course the screw heads had to match, even if no one else would probably ever notice if they didn't.  I would know and it would drive me crazy. 

In need of new screws, I decided that it was time to run to make an evening run to Lowes.  I hopped in the Miata and dropped the top, even though it was below 40 degrees outside.  I got a lot of strange looks driving around with the top down when it is "cold" outside, but it isn't too bad with a hat on and the heater on full blast.  Not to mention that winter is closing in and I'll have to put the Miata away for the winter.  After returning home with the proper screws, I put on my headlight and finished attaching the new flag holder in the dark.  Mission accomplished.

Since today is Veteran's Day, I thought that I would mix it up by posting a couple pictures of the ship that my dad was on when he was in the Navy (images borrowed from the ship's website, a link is provided below).  He was on the USS Horne DLG-30/CG-30, a ship that was commissioned in April of 1967 (my dad was part of the original crew) and decommissioned in 1993.

Here is a shot from the commissioning ceremony, dad should be in there somewhere:

 

And here she is sitting in San Diego Bay, where the CFO and I were last week (we drove over the bridge in the background)

And here is a random crew photo from the website that just happens to have dad in it (in the back, in case you don't notice the resemblance):

 

The heading under the photo said that they were "punching tubes" in the boiler, so I did a little bit of googling to see what exactly that meant.  I found this explanation on the website for the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt:

 

Cleaning watersides required draining the boiler, isolating it from the rest of the steam plant (with two valve security, chained and locked) and then climbing into the big water drum and “punching tubes.” It is not for the claustrophobic or even the faint of heart.

 

“Punching tubes” means putting a circular wire brush driven by an air rotor down each tube as far as the apparatus would reach. It was dusty, dirty work and the sound was reminiscent of a visit to the dentist.

 

That does not sound like fun...

 

After being decommissioned in 1993, the Horne went into storage until 2008, when she was used as a target during a training operation. After sustaining multiple missile strikes, she eventually sank to her final resting place, 3 miles deep at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii. There is a video of the missiles hitting the ship here: http://youtu.be/jCkf3ogkFxo  

 

If you are interested in reading more of the history of the Horne or want to look at more photos of the ship and crew, the ship's website is: USS Horne

Happy Veteran's Day!  Thanks to all of the veterans out there.

I "heart" S D

After many months of being stuck within the borders of Illinois, I was finally able to get away for a long weekend.  The CFO left Thursday morning to attend a conference in San Diego and I flew out Saturday morning to meet her.  

I much prefer to see snow out the window of an airplane than in our yard!

The CFO was presenting research with one of her co-workers on Saturday morning, so I was on my own to do as I please.  The UGA/FL football game was scheduled to start shortly after my arrival, so I hurriedly picked up our rental car, swung through the In-N-Out Burger drive thru for a tasty lunch and high tailed it to the hotel.  I missed the first 8 minutes of the football game, but was able to watch the remainder of the game while enjoying a burger and fries.  I hope there wasn't anyone staying in the adjacent rooms during the game, as I did a little bit of my usual yelling at the TV when my Dawgs tried to give away the game in the third quarter.  Luckily, they were able to hang on for the win!

I wish this company would expand to the midwest, their burgers are so good!  We probably would have never stopped here if a friend of mine hadn't suggested it.  Now we are addicted and look for them when ever we are on the left coast.

On Sunday morning, we got in the rental car and headed north along the Pacific Coast Highway to La Jolla.  We ate a delicious breakfast on the porch of the Brockton Villa Restaurant that overlooks the bay.  This has become one of our favorite spots and we have gone there for breakfast all 3 times that we have been in the area.  The CFO loves their fresh squeezed orange juice and the sweet bread basket and I always order their “Coast Toast” French toast.

The CFO enjoying the views of La Jolla

 

After we ate, we drove to the glider port north of La Jolla, hoping to watch hand gliders jump off the cliff and fly out over the ocean.  I guess that we got there too early, as there wasn't a glider to be seen.  We decided to continue north and ended up stopping in Encinitas to browse some stores and check out the beach.  While on our way to the beach, we found a modern house for sale that we both liked.  However, we were quickly disappointed when I found the listing on my phone… the  price was $2.8 million.  Even with the income from the rentable attached guest house, it would be difficult to come up with the $11,000 per month estimated mortgage.  Ouch!  Not to mention that if I’m going to spend 2.8 million on a house, I would hope that it would be on some acreage, not a postage stamp lot (albeit a postage stamp that was 1 block away from the beach!).

In case you are interested, here is the link with more photos:  House

One of the shop owners that we talked to told us that there was an art festival further north in Carlsbad, so we continued along the PCH until we found the festival.  Even though the festival covered at least 10-15 blocks, we didn’t find anything that caught our eye… it was more of a random stuff that we could live without show than an art show. After that, we headed back towards San Diego, stopping at In-N-Out for lunch (two days in a row for me!) and a few small stores along the way.

Of course I had to take a photo of a miata with a surf board riding shotgun.

 

On Monday morning we ate breakfast on the roof of the hotel before heading west across the bay bridge to Coronado Island.  Unfortunately, the morning started out a little cool and overcast (yet still better than Illinois weather!)

The view from the breakfast terrace on top of our hotel.

We spent the morning on Coronado walking along the beach and sitting on a bench while naval ships sailed in and out of the bay.  It is interesting to see the naval base where my dad was stationed when he was in the navy...  We also roamed around the shops at the Hotel Del Coronado, a place that the CFO would like to stay, but doesn't fit our current budget.  They have some beach front villas with fire pits on patios that overlook the beach and she thinks that would be a nice place to spend a few days… keep dreaming I say!  We spent the rest of the day roaming the island and downtown San Diego.

The CFO all bundled up in front of the Hotel Del Coronado.

We flew back home at noon on Tuesday, arriving home around 8pm… leaving just enough time to go to Moe’s for “Two Taco Tuesday” before they closed for the night.  Then it was back to work on Wednesday… it was a quick trip, but well worth it. 

While we were out roaming the stores in San Diego, I kept seeing this shirt: 

 

 

After seeing it a few times, I pointed to it and told the CFO that she needed this shirt.  She looked at me funny for a second and then it clicked... while the SD implied San Diego, my initials just happen to be S.D. too...  Sadly, she still didn't buy one...

Getting saucy...

For the first time in a long time, I skipped last week’s post because there wasn’t much to write about.  There still isn’t a whole lot to talk about, but here goes the two week update:

Two weeks ago, the CFO and I had tentative plans to go to the UGA vs. Vandy in Nashville. Unfortunately, our ticket source didn’t work out for us, so we didn't go.  Perhaps it is our fault that UGA lost that game, since we didn't go?  Or it could be  our fault since that this was the first game all season that I haven't watched on TV.  Instead, we braved unusually cold weather and went tailgating and attended the ISU football game.  One of the CFO's co-worker's sons was playing on the visiting team, so we were cheering for ISU while also partially cheering for him.  

Supporting her son made the game kind of funny.  He is the long snapper for his team, so he is only on the field when they are kicking. Unfortunately for his team, they punted a lot during this game due to horrible offensive play.  Every time he snapped the ball and the punter caught it, a huge cheer would erupt from the 25-30 supporters that were there with his mom.  I'm sure all the people around us were wondering why everyone in the group was cheering at that point in the game, as it isn't a time when you would typically cheer. 

 The CFO tolerated the cold weather through half time, so that she could see the band (her favorite part of football games).  Since she was cold and ISU was up by over 40 points, we left shortly after halftime.

 

Early last week the weather reports showed that we were going to get our first heavy frost.  I went out to the garden and picked around 200 roma tomatoes off my plants, taking everyone that was fairly close to ripe.  This is, by far, the most tomatoes that we have ever gotten in one season.  The phrase "bumper crop" doesn't begin to describe it.  It is a good thing that I picked them when I did, as the plants were brown the following day.  At the time, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with all of those tomatoes, so I just spread them out on the counter so that they could ripen up a little more:

 

Last Saturday night, the CFO and I went to see Bill Cosby perform at ISU with some friends.  Yes, we just saw him last year in Peoria, but he was so entertaining that we wanted to see him again.  He isn’t getting any younger, so if he comes to your area, I encourage you to go see him.  He came out in an ISU sweat shirt and proceeded to spend 90+ minutes telling funny stories about growing up and having some interesting interactions with audience members.  I don't think that he repeated anything from the show last year.  He definitely has great "comedic sense," but his facial expressions are what takes his humor to the next level.  This photo doesn't do the view from our balcony seats justice, we could actually see him pretty well:

 

After church on Sunday, I spent a few hours peeling, seeding and cooking down all those tomatoes that had been laying on the counter all week.  By the time that I had finished the first hundred, I found a good system that worked and made relatively quick work of the pile... all while also flipping between the NASCAR race and an NFL game.  Having a TV within view of the kitchen is awesome.  And, yes, I understand that making home made spaghetti sauce and watching NASCAR are a bit of a strange combination. 

I ended up making two pots of spaghetti sauce, but after simmering for several hours, they both cooked down pretty far.  I would have thought that I would get a whole lot more sauce out of that many tomatoes!  Oh well.  We kept some sauce on the stove for dinner and put the remainder into bags and stuck them in the freezer.  They will be a nice treat to thaw out this winter.

After standing around in the kitchen all afternoon, I decided to head to the gym and take part in a “challenge ride” that they were offering.  It was basically a 90 minute spin class, double the length of a typical class.  My favorite instructor (the most challenging one) led the ride and I was joined by 6 other “usuals” from the early morning spin classes.  We had a great workout and the 90 minutes went by surprisingly fast.  After covering a computer estimated 39 miles and burning an estimated 1510 calories, I was hungry!  Good thing that I had a pot of homemade sauce simmering on the stove at home! 

I was some what disappointed when I arrived home after the workout to find out that the CFO didn’t have the pasta noodles cooked and ready to eat.  After all that work that I did on the sauce, I still had to cook the noodles too!  You just can’t find good help these days!  Although, I have to admit that she was working on grading student projects, so I guess I can cut her a little slack.  After all, someone has to bring home the bacon around here.

 

CFO's B-day

My stomach churned a bit this morning when I heard that Macy’s announced that they will be opening at 8pm on thanksgiving evening this year.  The black Friday creep is gaining momentum and the list of retailers that are going to be open sometime on Thursday is getting longer and longer.  What is happening to this country?  It is depressing to see that one of the few sacred days when most businesses were closed is slowly becoming just another day.  Christmas day is next, just wait for it… and then remember that I said that it was coming. 

The CFO celebrated her 34^th birthday last week and her parents came for a visit to celebrate with us.  Prior to their arrival, I spent several hours on Tuesday night making the CFO’s birthday dessert request, individual apple cakes with caramel and pecans on top.  While they turned out very well, I was quickly reminded why it had been 4+ years since I made them.  I enjoy working in the kitchen, but something that goes over 2 hours to prepare quickly falls to the bottom of the list.

I made 2 dozen of these, yes, they tasted pretty darn good.

 

Our visit with her parents was full of good eating and the ladies did a lot of shopping.  On Saturday, the CFO’s dad and I suffered through watching UGA fall to Missouri and then Virginia losing to Maryland.  After that mental beating, we all went out for pizza and watched ISU get run over during the first half of their game.  It was not a good day for our football teams!

Sunday afternoon, her dad and I went to see the movie “Rush.”  I have wanted to see it since it came out about a month ago and I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to see it in the theatre.  Since it had a racing theme (1976 Formula1 championship) The CFO wasn’t interested in seeing it, even after a friend’s wife highly recommended it.  In my opinion, the movie did not disappoint, it was very entertaining and I highly recommend it, whether you are a racing fan or not.