Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

Yesterday, we drove to Godfrey, just north of Alton for a family reunion. It was raining as we were heading there. We actually got into some heavy rain early into the trip. It was bad enough that we were driving quite slow on the interstate. Fortunately we only had to endure the storm for a short while. The rest of the trip there was beautiful and we safely arrived at the reunion.

The reunion was nice although I really don't know many of the people. I know a few faces and some names, but I'm not clear on who begat whom. Regardless, Lourdes was a big hit.

We were in no hurry to get home. For example, last year we had the puppies and a great aunt, so we needed to get home. Even having a little baby with us this year didn't put us in a hurry. So we decided to take the long way home. We took the two-lane country roads just to see what we could see.

It was a nice leisurely drive. The radio (on a St. Louis station) was calling for thunderstorms and tornado watches in Missouri. I was pretty confident that we were not near the bad weather. So we meandered in a northerly direction in the beautiful countryside. Our route took us through several small towns. The kind with the old brick buildings all interconnected on Main Street, kind of the original stripmall.

Off in the distance, to the west, we could see it slowly getting darker. I wasn't too worried because I thought it was too far away and that we would eventually be heading in an easterly direction. Actually, we ended up heading in a northwesterly direction before we could start heading northeast. That took us into the eye of the storm.

We crossed the Illinois River at Beardstown. As we were crossing the river, the wind picked up and it started to rain. There was a tugboat pushing several barges up the river. Just in front of the barges, there was a "cyclone". It was like a "dust devil" but it was huge and over water. Very cool, and a little scary. We got to the other side of the river and it started raining very hard. I had to slow down because it was difficult to see. A Dodge Ram was right on my butt, but I wasn't going to go any faster. Then we started up a hill and there was a slow vehicle lane. I took it and the Ram sped by me. We crested the hill and seemed to be back out on the plains. We went through an intersection and then it started raining really hard. I could barely see in front of me. We came to a crawl and then suddenly we couldn't see anything in front of us. Fortunately we came to a stop right by a side road so we pulled off on the side road to wait out the storm (and to get out of the way of any crazy people who wanted to continue).

We waited for a few minutes on this side road. The rain and wind rocked the truck and I was worried about what we needed to do. We were in the middle of nowhere and a huge storm was on top of us. Who knows if there was a tornado as well.

It was only a few minutes but it seemed longer. The rain and wind let up a little so we hit the road again. The rest of the trip was fine, no hard rain, no strong winds and we arrived safe and sound at home.

Pretty Little Lourdes

The crack of the bat....

...over Jerry's head.

I know I already said good night, but after I signed off I was telling Raquel what happened to Jerry last week.

Jerry loves baseball and he coaches a boys baseball team. He was coaching first base and his player got walked. Jerry started to annotate something on the lineup and was engrossed in the sheet. The boy who was walked started to head towards first. He wanted to throw the bat towards his dugout. It hit Jerry in the head. I wasn't there but I can just imagine the sound of an aluminum bat resonating after thwacking a skull.

Jerry's got a tough nugget. He's hit it several times. He cut his forehead on a ladder at work and got stitches (about a year and half ago). Last summer, on at least two occasions, while mowing his yard with a riding mower, he hit his head on a low branch of a huckleberry tree. Not sure if he tried ducking too late or didn't see it all. Either way, both times (or possibly more) resulted in a good scrape on his noggin.

Poor Jerry wasn't thinking straight and told his dad to take him to the wrong hospital. Fortunately, he had to wait a while before being seen by the doctor. I say fortunately because he came to his senses before seeing a doctor and incurring an emergency room charge that might not be covered by his insurance. He went to an emergency room in his HMO and got 5 staples in his head.

Good night again.

Drop and give me 20 (pounds)!

We went to visit Greg and Deb and their two beautiful daughters this weekend. Greg took some pictures and posted them. There were a couple of me in there that were none too flattering...I wasn't able to suck in my big belly.

I mentioned in a previous post that I had put on quite a bit of weight over the winter. I like to think of it as sympathy weight. Trouble is, Raquel had the baby and I still look pregnant.

I've started running and walking a couple times a week after work. Now, I know I need to go more often. It's really disheartening to try to run. My shins hurt from the extra weight. I get winded easier. My time for running 1.5 miles is 20% slower than last year...and last year was less than spectacular. But I'm going to fight through this. I'm not going to succumb to a fad diet diet like Crapkins. I'm not going to count calories and determine if they are from protein, carbs, or fat. I'm just going to eat better (less sweets, smaller portions), drink fewer sodas, and drink more water. And work harder during exercise.

I'm a little tired now and can't think of anything funny or interesting to write.

Good night.

Help, call the police, my baby is on fire!!

A few years ago, a young man that I worked with was married to a young woman who was deaf. I bought a book to learn a little bit of sign language so that I could talk to her. "Help, call the police, my baby is on fire!!" was the first sentence I put together. I don't think she was overly impressed.

I know it's been a little over a month since I last posted. No real excuses, but the transition to a new(er) computer was one delay. Greg left a few questions:

How's Raquel and the baby? Raquel and baby are both fine. Raquel loves being a mommy and she's good at it. Lourdes has been such a good baby. She doesn't fuss a lot, she has slept a few times through the whole night (otherwise she wakes once), and she's really cute to boot. She had her two-month check-up yesterday. She weighed in at 11lbs 9oz and was about 22.5", putting her in the 50th percentile. She's in the 99th percentile in cuteness. Who am I kidding, there's not a cuter baby out there. Oh yeah, she had her first immunizations yesterday. She didn't enjoy them but she recovered quickly.

Dogs learned any new tricks? Not that they've showed me. But I suspect they are secretly trying to gas me at night.

Anything pissing you off lately? Not really, nothing of note.

What are the specs on this new computer you got? It's an emachines T2245, 2.2 Ghz Celeron processor, 768 MB of RAM, 160 GB primary hard drive, 40 GB secondary hard drive, DVD drive, CD-RW drive, 10/100 Mbps ethernet card, and Windows XP Home. A friend gave the computer to me sans hard drives and only 256 MB of RAM. I pumped it up to it's current configuration. Probably the most important thing I did to it was load vcom System Suite 5 software. It includes a firewall and Trend Micro antivirus software. If you run Windows, I highly recommend System Suite 5.

Had any time to take the Harley out for a spin? Well sort of. I fired it up a couple weeks ago and took it for a spin around the block, but I didn't have the current license sticker at that time. Now I'm legal, and I hope to start riding to work, especially since gas was $1.95 today. If it's nice tomorrow, I may take a short trip over to Morton.

How about those Cubs? I'm sure you're referring to the Chicago kind, so a quick look at their official web page shows them in second place, 2.5 games behind the first-place Astros