Back in touch...

Last post, I talked about some around-the-world-on-motorcycle blogs/websites that I had been following lately. I was worried because there hadn't been any updates for a little while and I quite frankly wondered if something bad had happened to them. Finally a little news about them.
The World Rider guy finally put up a quick post and picture saying he was in Santiago, Chile. No explanation as to why he hadn't posted nor were there any tales of his travels. He did say he was behind and has lots of photos and stories to tell.
The "Round the World or Bust!" couple also updated and included a bit of a journal with their adventures. The key reason they hadn't updated was due to a maid knocking their laptop off the nightstand and breaking it. They've got a replacement computer now and should be back to regular updates.
Weather
Yesterday the weather was to take a turn for the worse. Rain was to change to freezing rain and later this weekend it's supposed to snow a little. It didn't seem too bad at first, but as the day wore on, I noticed more and more cars with ice on them. Salt spreaders were out in force, trying to stay ahead of the weather. There was a really bad winter storm in November/December that shut down this area. The storm came and went but the recovery took longer than many think it should have. Now public officials are wanting to seem proactive and implement a better snow/winter storm plan.
Fitness
My coworker Greg and I have been trying to focus on maintaining a level of fitness that will allow us to pick up where we left off in better weather and hopefully notch it up a ways. We are afforded the opportunity to work out three times a week on company time. We typically run a trail in the back 40 that has some steep hills. The trail itself is just shy of three miles. Greg started working with us full time in the spring last year and it only took him a few times to consistently run the trail without stopping. I took much longer to get there due to shin splints and foot problems. After changing to the Brooks Cascadia trail shoe, my legs and feet got better and I was able to run the whole trail without stopping on a much more consistent basis. With the onset of winter, we've been determined to continue hitting the trail, but we're not running it every time. Some times we'll run as far as we can, other times we'll fast walk, and still other times we'll fast walk most of the trail and run some of the hills. We've not allowed rain or snow or darkness deter us. After the first snow of the season, we put on the mukluks and waded through some knee -deep snow. Another time it had rained all day, but we hit the wet muddy trail with enthusiasm. By the way, we didn't see anyone else out there that day!
Last year, we were prepping for a major exercise and in turn a major inspection to prove that our unit was ready for war. A big part of the exercise/inspection process is to wear an anti-chemical suit, flak jacket and kevlar helmet while waiting for attacks to happen. If it's a chemical attack, you have to put on a mask and gloves and do what you have to do. During the simulated war, you most likely wear the ensemble minus gloves and mask for your entire shift. The chemical attacks in these simulations will put you the whole getup and "sucking rubber" for up to six hours. Greg and I prepped for these times by walking the trail in our flak jackets and masks. This was July and August by the way. In September when we had to play the first war game, Greg found himself in the mask and started to get a bit of a mild "panic attack". He calmed himself down immediately by thinking back to walking the trail in the mask and knowing that he made it through that hard physical exertion so sitting on the floor waiting for instructions should be a piece of cake.
Another benefit we've both noticed is that we pass our annual fitness tests much easier than before. There are four major components to the test and each carry certain amount of points. Waist measurement and cardio recovery comprise the most points and if you can't get decent scores on those, you get a marginal or poor score. Greg and I both improved our cardio scores and that's directly attributed to our running/walking regimen.
Greg has a goal of running the 15k Steamboat Classic which I think is in June. I haven't decided if I want to do that yet. Either way, we'll be increasing our distances. Don't be surprised if I get roped into it!!
Rivermen
The Rivermen won last night and are third in their division and not too far behind first and second. They're looking pretty good overall, but occasionally will have lapses that cost them dearly. They face the same problems that all farm teams have to deal with such as player callups, injuries, injury-rehab assignments, and the dreaded impatient - foreign - players - who - think - they - should - jump - right - into - the - NHL - because - they - were - stars - in - their - country - but - aren't - adjusting - well - because - the - game - is - more - physical - and - faster - so - they - jump - ship - and - run - home - to - mama types. Let's see how the rivs do tonight against a Milwaukee team that's not too far behind in the standings.

Post #85

Welcome to my 85th post!! What a milestone! I know there are those of you who never thought it would go this far, but here we are!!! Can you smell the sarcasm?

Actually, I know there aren't a lot of readers of this blog, but I really need to do a better job of posting (doesn't that sound familiar?). There are some blogs and personal web pages that I've been following and I always enjoy their updates. I'm finding myself worried because there haven't been any updates in a while. For example, there's a guy traveling around the world on his motorcycle. He started in the US, made his way to South America, and had an accident in Bolivia. He broke his leg rather badly when his motorcycle fell over on him and he needed to be medically evacuated back to the US. He had surgeries and therapy and recuperated for about 9 months. He then went back to Bolivia, got his motorcycle repaired, ran in to some red tape, had another minor accident (tweaked his leg/foot), etc. Well the guy hasn't posted for a couple weeks and that makes me a little concerned for his well-being.

Then there's a couple who are on their way around the world on motorcycles. They haven't posted in almost a month. I'm a bit worried about them and I can't even begin to think about what their families must be thinking.

I feel weird getting caught up in the lives of these people I don't even know, but I enjoy reading about their adventures. They are doing something that I would love to be able to attempt someday. I'm not so sure about how far around the world I would want to go, but I definitely want to travel extensively on a motorcycle. I think I would probably start on some smaller treks within North America, but the coolest thing would be a tip-to-tip trip, the Artic Circle in Alaska down to the tip of South America in Ushuaia, Argentina. What do you think, Greg?

Around the world.......

Dan's blog had a nifty link to a website that let you check off a list of countries that you have visited and it would generate a map of the world with the visited countries in red. As I was checking off the list, I cheated with a couple countries in that I really didn't spend more than a couple hours at an airport there. Those countries are England and French Guiana. Two other countries on the list are a stretch but allow me to explain them.

One time I was going to Kuwait for a 30 day temporary duty with the Air Force. Someone at our base was misinformed on how to get there. This person thought that all personnel going to the Middle East had to take a normal personnel rotation flight to Saudi Arabia and would then continue on to their destination. After delays getting out of the US and finally arriving in Saudi Arabia, we (I was traveling with one other person from my base) were informed that we should not have flown to Saudi Arabia as there are no continuing flights to Kuwait. The base there really didn't know what to do with us so we spent the remainder of the night under a giant overhang outside and waited for further instructions. The next morning, a small plane that did a regular mail run was able to give us a lift into Kuwait, and then we were able to hitch a ride with some Air Force security guys to our base. So my visit to Saudi Arabia was brief and limited.

Once I was returning from Paraguay and had to change planes in Brazil. There was a mechanical delay there and the airline put me up in a hotel in San Pablo (Sao Paulo). It was a somewhat eerie feeling to arrive at the airport the next morning without proper credentials (no Brazilian visa in my passport) and try to convince security that I was legally there.

My Visited Countries

Get your own Visited Countries Map from Travel Blog

We were able to have a short visit with Greg and Deb on Saturday. Their little girls were terrific with our little girl. Allie was very patient and shared her Leapster and Julia surprised her parents by sharing her little babies. They said that Dan had mentioned us in one of his recent posts. Thanks Dan and Amy! And we think our Lourdes is pretty too!!


It was nice to see Greg, Deb and the girls. I hope we can spend a little more time together in the future. Perhaps we should consider a visit to the magical state of Wisconsin (even the name is enchanting!). Greg explained the problem he is having with his blog. Basically he goes through his web page with his ISP to import from Blogger. That method has always been a problem for him and basically his web page host/ISP changed something and he's got to figure out what he needs to do to get back up and running. Good luck!!

The end of Greg and Deb on the Web....

Greg mentioned that Blogger Beta has caused the demise of his web page. I'm not sure what he means as he didn't give any details, so I thought I would post an update on my page to see if there are any problems.
I know October was the last time I posted, so I'll make the same empty promise of trying to do better in the future.
Everything is fine here and Lourdes is growing like a weed. In mid-January we'll probably be helping her move into the dorms for the spring semester at U of I. Just kidding, she's growing by leaps and bounds and seems to be getting smarter all the time.
Time to take a shower and go visit the family for an early Christmas celebration.
Take care and Happy Holidays (Christmas, Chanukah, Kawanza, New Year's, and any thing else that I swear to God or your higher deity (or lack there of) that I didn't intentionally leave out).

Move over "Ask This Old House"

I had to work on the garage today. Last year I replaced the soffit and fascia on one side of the garage and put off doing the other side. Earlier this year, I had a roofing and siding company come in and replace the gutters on the house and garage. Well before they could do their thing, I needed to tear down the soffit and fascia. I was able to put up the fascia but ran out of time to put the soffit. Ideally one puts up the fascia and then the soffit and then guttering. So here I was with new fascia and guttering and totally lacking the soffit. I had to get creative to avoiding taking everything down and starting over. So I put up F-channel all around, cut a piece of soffit in half lengthwise, and slid the soffit into the F-channel. So much easier than the normal way and just as effective! I wish I had done this sooner, today would have been a beautiful day for a ride.

Bad Rivs

Last night was a very disappointing outing for the Rivermen. They played sloppy and didn't attack on offense after the first few minutes. The penalty kill teams did a pretty good job overall, killing something like nine out of ten power plays. Otherwise it was a poor showing and they lost. Actually they got shut out 5-0 by the Chicago Wolves. It's still early in the season, so I'm not worried, but it's not fun to watch your team get a spanking.

Greg called asking when we could meet on motorcycles, but it's probably too late to try it this year. Next weekend is the only chance we would have and that's not looking promising. After next weekend we both have work interfering for a couple of weekends or more. Then it'll be well into November and the temperatures will most likely not be comfortable for a long ride. But I think we'll keep our options open or plan for next season.

I'm currently blogging from the couch using my new laptop (got it for my birthday) on my newly installed wireless network. The wireless network was easy to install. I followed the instructions step-by-step and everything came up perfect. I then fired up the new laptop which already has a wireless NIC built in and put in all the settings for security for my wireless LAN and bam! I'm wireless on my laptop.

I put a wireless card in my old HP desktop that I have in another room. I've been running SUSE Linux 9.3 on that thing for several months as an experiment in learning more about Linux. I like the fact that Linux can be free and often can breathe new life into older machines. The downside is that it can be a bit of a learning curve. Don't get me wrong, it was an easy install and is quite a bit like other operating systems that I've seen over the years. It even recognizes newly installed hardware. I haven't tried installing any new software yet, so I have yet to experience that. It recognized my PCI NIC and the wireless NIC, but the wireless NIC is a problem. It seems that many wireless NICs don't have drivers for Linux so users have to trick their computers by loading a piece of software that emulates a bit of a Windows environment and run the Windows drivers for the wireless NIC. Well instead of messing with that for now, I ran a piece of CAT5 from the wireless router to the HP and it was up on the net in no time. At some point in the near future, I will try to download the aforementioned software and be able to cut the umbilical cord to that computer. Wish me luck!

Well, I know that was boring to all but the geeks out there. What else can I talk about that might appeal to all? As I'm blogging, I've got the TV on to watch the NASCAR race at Talledaga, the dogs are napping all around me (if the computer weren't on my lap, one or more of the dogs would be), Lourdes is napping in bed, and Raquel just showered and is getting ready for us to go to Adam's house later for a fish fry/seafood fest. You can make fun of me for watching NASCAR but I don't care. These guys are running over 190 mph right now and are bound to wreck so I'm just waiting for the chaos!.

Last night I fired up Google Earth for the first time in a long time and checked out Paraguay. I had looked for Caazapa before and either I couldn't find it or there wasn't any detail yet. This time I found Villarica which is an hour or so north of Caazapa and I just followed the roa d south and found Caazapa. I marked the hotel that we stay at, the cemetary near my sister-in-law's house (I didn't want to mark her house), the sport's complex, and one of the hospitals. It was pretty neat to see. I tried to follow the road out of town to find where my inlaws live, but the details suddenly drop off. It was still really neat. Hopefully, the earth will get completely mapped in detail someday. Raquel actually got kick out of seeing Caazapa and her sisters house.

Well that's it for now. Besides the batteries are running low and two posts in two days is going to cause my friends and family to expect more consistent posts.

How did I get up here?

Okay another post. This makes what, the second one in three or four months? I should pace myself.

Raquel and I celebrated our fourth anniversary at the end of September.

Greg joined me in the ranks of the 40-year-olds last month.

The Rivermen kicked off the beginning of another season with a win last night. It was a good game that was 9.6 seconds away from a shootout. We were there and we'll go back to night for another game against another team. Good luck guys!

Lourdes keeps growing! I was gone for a week in September and she started putting more and more words together. It seems like she advanced so much in that one week. At this rate she'll be writing for the Times by age five. I'll be gone for another week soon, I wonder how far she'll be when I come back.

I'm suddenly very tired as I write this. I'm on the verge of being recovered from a cold but it feels like I'm coming down with it again. Let's hope that I'm just sleepy from a later than usual night. Plus I didn't get my weekend nap in. Actually, we've all had a touch of something over the last week and a half, but we all seem to be about over it.

Greg and Deb are closing in on their 10th anniversary. It seems like just yesterday that Greg and I were hanging out in his apartment, eating chili and ice cream after a workout at the gym!

I pretty much haven't been out on the motorcycle at all this year. I really don't like to ride it to work because so much of the time I stay after and run or walk and I don't want to have to change clothes again to get back on the bike for the trip home. Greg and I should try to coordinate a road trip where I head north, he heads south, we meet somewhere and ride for a short while then head back to our respective homes. What do you say Greg?

I wanna go home!

Lourdes keeps saying she wants to go home. The problem is that we are already home when she says this. What she is implying is that she wants to go to the neighbor's house. The neighbors will usually let her come over and eventually she'll want to come home on her own. One evening they had to go do some errands but Lourdes didn't want to leave them, so she ended up going with them and not coming home until after dark.

Like many little girls, Lourdes is crazy about the Disney Princesses. Well now she has her own little princess dress because like many dads, I like to spoil my little princess.

It seemed like we were gone quite often recently. We had two consecutive weekends of family reunions way out of town. We also had a wedding the day after one of the reunions, which meant a road trip. Then the following weekend we had a cookout to go to (also out of town). So we spent a lot of money on gas during that stretch. Even if we didn't have Lourdes, we couldn't have gone on the motorcycle because we had to haul some things from my grandma's house everytime we were near Decatur. I think all of that is behind us now and we're back to less frequent out of town trips.

There's another addition to the barn at my mom's. This cute little guy was born sometime around the middle of July. I think they now have 4 miniature horses.

"Stop touching my butt!!"

Monday was my day off. We work a compressed schedule and so I get a day off during the week. I used to get just about every other Friday off, but I recently changed to Mondays off. So we left Lourdes with the neighbors in the afternoon for a few hours so we could see PotC: Dead Man's Chest. We enjoyed the sequel almost as much as the first.

We met up with the neighbors afterwards at the ballpark for their boys' baseball game. Lourdes was happy to see us but she had a great time without us. She didn't want to sit still for the game; she kept running away. I had to chase her a couple times and bring her back to where we were sitting. As I was carrying her, she started shouting "Stop touching my butt!!" Of course it seemed like everyone was looking at me at that moment. For the record, I was not touching her butt.

Took Pancho to the emergency room the Saturday night. Not sure what happened but he was very distressed and shaking and occasionally yelped in extreme pain. The vet examined him and determined that his neck was sore. We think that maybe he fell down the stairs while we were gone that day.

Dover got neutered a few weeks ago. I had asked about the removal of stitches, but was told he had internal stitches so there was no need to come back. Well, I thought maybe the stitches that I could literally see on Dover's junk were the kind that dissolve after a few days/weeks. Well the were still there today so I called the vet. They looked up his chart and said that he didn't have stitches. I explained that he really did have stitches and that I wasn't just imagining them. They suggested I bring him over for a look. Sure enough he did have stitches (I told them he did!!) and the vet hadn't annotated the chart correctly. They promptly removed them and we were on our way.

I had told Raquel on Monday that I didn't have to go to work on Tuesday because I was scheduled for a workshop/class on datacomm at a local vendor. Tuesday morning I got up and headed up to the local gas station for a cappucino and I called Adam's office to make sure he wasn't there and that he was on his way to the class. Well he was in the office and had forgotten about the class, but he wasn't worried because it was actually on WEDNESDAY!!! Needless to say I felt foolish and had to go back home to put on my uniform.

My World Cup Fever has broken!

I didn't have much of a World Cup fever. I watched part of a couple of matches (like the tie between Sweden and Trinidad and Tobago and part of a USA match and part of the England final game) but didn't get to involved with the whole thing. I would check on how Paraguay did but that was about it.

I tuned in today to catch the final minutes of the final game today, just in time to see the replays of the French dude head butt the chest of an Italian player. I thought it was hilarious that a star player could lose his cool at a crucial moment and may have cost his team the game. Who knows what the result would have been if he had remained in the game. Regardless, France lost, Italy won. Between those two teams, I was pulling for Italy anyway. I felt a little more connected to Italy, having spent 4 months there a few years ago. Besides, who likes the French anyway?

We hit the Rock Island Trail again today. We didn't quite go as far as we did yesterday, but we were close. I think we got in a little over 14 miles. Our goal was to go just past the 7 mile mark to this mulberry tree that has huge, ripe mulberries that are easy to reach. I took a couple of pictures and posted them.

We rented a some DVD's this weekend. A Dirty Shame stars Tracy Ullman, Johnny Knoxville, and Selma Blair. It was pretty much retarded. I don't think John Waters should be given any more film to make movies. Ultra Violet was much better but still not very good. The Hills Have Eyes rounded out our trio of stinkers. But please don't let my opinion prevent you from renting these on your own. I think a bad review sometimes makes a movie better. Go in with low expectations and come out saying "It wasn't that bad!"

Gotta go shower. Check out the pics on Flickr.

He said "Little girls aren't very smart!"

Yesterday, we decided to go to Lenscrafters. Actually it was decided for us when my glasses finally completely broke. They had been limping along, all bent up, for quite a while. Lourdes has been very rough on them. With lightning quick reflexes, she grabs them right off my face and wreaks havoc on them. She hadn't done that for some time, but did so a few days ago. She bent one of the temples and actually broke it at the hinge, but not all the way through. It gave up the ghost yesterday.

So we went to Lenscrafters because they normally get you the glasses in the same day. Not having a spare set of glasses, I needed new ones and pronto! After getting the exam, I started looking at what kind of frames I wanted. I chose some, as well as some sunglasses. I've had small, rectangular lenses for a couple of years and I'm tired of them. They are too small, which is normally a good thing, but being smaller meant there was a smaller area to see through, so they were in the way. So I chose some slightly larger (yet still sort of small) frames with a bit of a roundness to them.

Anyway, we were waiting for the regular glasses to be made and Lourdes was playing with some toys they had to keep youngsters occupied. A little boy that seemed to be about six years old came along and wanted to play with the toys as well. Most toys were for toddlers, but there was a rubber whale/shark that Lourdes was playing with. The little boy desperately wanted to play with this whale/shark and kept trying to get Lourdes to give it to him. He tried bribing her with other toys. We tried to help him a little by telling Lourdes to share, but she didn't want to give up the toy. The boy complained to his mother and she was unsympathetic to his plight. She told him to play with other toys but he insisted that the whale/shark was the only toy there for bigger kids. He tried and tried and Raquel laughed at his efforts. He said it wasn't funny and then he said "Little girls aren't very smart!" As his mother was collecting him and his brother to leave, she commented that she didn't like the way he was acting.

Later we went biking on the Rock Island Trail. It is an old railway converted into a trail for biking, walking, running, and cross-country skiing (although I'm skeptical that it gets much use in that capacity). We've been trying to go out biking a couple times a week when we can. We've gone several times on the River Trail of Illinois in East Peoria which is also a converted railway line and last week tried the Rock Island Trail. We went about 12 or 13 miles round trip the last time and decided to push it a little further this time. Somehow we just kept going and ended up putting in about 18 miles round trip. Both trails have lots of mulberry trees all over and they are producing tons of sweet fruit right now. We found one tree that had mulberries about the size of large grapes. Lourdes couldn't get enough. She also couldn't get enough of them in her mouth and had mulberry juice stains all over her face!

I posted a couple more pictures on Flickr.

Gravity: Not just a good idea; it's the law!

Lourdes likes to throw things in the air. Most times the things will go up a little ways and fall to the ground behind her. Sometimes the things fall in front of her. Occasionally, she gets hit in the head.

She has become a bit of a rock collector. We walked to the post office on Saturday and she tried to pick up several rocks because she thought they belonged to her. There were some really nice white rocks at the base of the flag pole at the post office that she really wanted but I wouldn't let her have them and she couldn't convince me, try as she might, that they belonged to her.

Tonight, she brought one of her rocks inside and started throwing it up in the air in the living room. I was in the kitchen bringing a dead PowerPC Mac back to life and Lourdes began crying. She apparently hit herself in the head with her rock. I know she's young, but I hope that teaches her to not throw rocks straight up, not to mention in the house.

I uploaded a few pics to Flickr.

Baby Jesus in my underwear

Raquel is easy to scare. I can tell her that I'm going to scare her and still scare her. Yesterday she had my cell phone in her pocket. It's set to ring and vibrate. She was outside watering the flowers and I called her. The phone started to ring, but more importantly vibrate. This scared her. Of course I knew this would happen, so I watched her from the living room as I called. She jumped a little bit.

When she was finished watering and was coming in to the house, Lourdes and I hid by the kitchen table and jumped out to scare her. Of course it scared the pee out of her (almost literally).

Raquel had laid out a pair of my underwear for after my shower. When I was finished showering, she grabbed my underwear to give to me. There was something in it. She was scared because she didn't know what it was. She hurriedly gave me the underwear and was saying excitedly "What is it? What is it?" I took the underwear and shook it. Baby Jesus fell out. Well not the Baby Jesus, but a really small Baby Jesus from a really small Nativity scene that we have. Lourdes loves to climb up on the dresser where these little statues are and play with them. Somehow Baby Jesus ended up in my underwear.

Adam invited us over Saturday night for some brisket. Adam loves to cook and we love to eat his food. Lourdes loves to play with Zoey and Zoey seems to enjoy playing with Lourdes. So we ate some delicious food, watched Heavy: The History of Metal (I think that's what it is called) on VH1, and the kids played. Finally we put in the DVD The Ringer starring Johnny Knoxville and laughed our a$$es off. Johnny Knoxville plays a man who enters the Special Olympics even though he's not "special". Don't worry, it was made with the support of the Special Olympics and several special athletes.

Sunday, we went to Godfrey for a family reunion and ate too much.

Today, we'll probably see Over the Hedge and swim in the pool.

PS As I was putting on my shoes, I found a little angel from the Nativity Scene stashed away in one of them.

The end is near...

...well, the end of our trip is near. We arrived in Asuncion this evening without too much confusion or delay, despite the darkness, the lack of clear road signs, and the weird driving habits of the locals. We fly out tomorrow evening but I wanted to make sure we got here to avoid any unforeseen circumstances that might prevent us from getting to the airport on time. We could walk to the airport now. It would be a long walk, but we could do it if we had to.

We are staying at the beautiful Portal del Sol Hotel here in Asuncion. It´s a really nice place and the price is very reasonable. I would recommend making reservations as both times I´ve been here, we´ve been very lucky to get a room.

I had another Trans Chaco Rally moment on Sunday. We went out to Potrero Guazu for a final visit. It had rained on Friday and the road was in decent shape on the heavily used parts. We stayed late and headed back to Caazapa in the dark. Now, the road is a bit of a challenge to drive in daylight to avoid the worst parts. At night it´s a lot more difficult. The headlights cause shadows or hide ruts making it even more challenging. Throw in the fact that the not-so-used parts of the road are difficult to judge for driveablilty and you´re asking for trouble. Well I found it. A car was approaching in the other direction and I had to get back on my own side of the road. In this case it was the unused part of the road. It was rutted but look passable...in the dark. We got sucked over to the farthest right side of the road and just sank. Fortunately I was able to go back and forth a bit until I was able to get back on to solid road. The little Daewoo pulled through!

Lourdes hasn´t been feeling well. She started with the standard runny nose, cough and a low fever just after Easter. Somehow we didn´t bring enough Little Colds multisymptom medicine with us and we had to buy some medicine here. It doesn´t taste very good and it´s a battle to get some down her. I´m not sure how effective it´s been. She improved, but not for long. She had a bloody nose yesterday evening and that was a little puzzling. I have to assume that with all the activity she´s had in her nose (runny nose, blowing the nose, picking the nose) that it just couldn´t take the abuse any longer. Other than being runny, her nose has been fine today. I think she may have strep or some virus as she has had a sore throat and has a couple sores in her mouth. The pharmacy reccomended an antibiotic (although if it´s a virus, the antibiotic won´t do any good) so hopefully she will show some improvement by tomorrow evening´s flight. I´m not sure what time we get home on Wednesday, but I´m sure it will be too late to get her to the pediatrician. Poor baby.

The Rivermen are in the first round of the playoffs and aren´t doing very well. They´re down 3-0 in a best-of-seven series. They play again Wednesday. I´m going to try and get to the game, might be the last of the season.

I don´t plan on posting on Tuesday, but I might do so to kill some time as our flight is in the evening. Regardless, once back in the states, I´ll probably have a bunch of catching up to do so don´t expect a post for at least a couple of days. I know, Greg and Deb will say that I´ll fall back into obscurity as far as posting is concerned, but we´ll see. I´ve got lots of pictures that I want to go through so keep an eye on the flickr.

Ciao for now!

Trans Chaco Rally x 2 (cont)

Raquel´s sister Abrelia had come home for Easter. Two of her sons live in Caazapa to go to school. She brought her two youngest daughters with her. I had never met Abrelia before because she lives way off the beaten path. It seems Abrelia got married and went away when Raquel was really young and so they have rarely seen each other. Needless to say, it was a nice reunion.

In fact, it was quite the family reunion. Veneria was the only missing. She went to Brazil in 2002 with her boyfriend and hasn´t come back yet. Avelino made it in from Asuncion. He took the bus as far as he could, then had to walk hours and hours in the dark, without a light to get to Potrero Guazu at about 2AM. I don´t think I could do that. Crispin lives fairly close by so he was able to make it. Diosnel lives in Potrero. Lourdes (the sister) still lives at home, and we took Juaquina. After the fact, I realized I didn´t take a picture!

So after Easter, Abrelia and her daughters Maria and Pricila made their way to Caazapa. I believe a relative gave them a ride. We decided we would take them on home. One of my brothers-in-law cautioned against going in the Daewoo. He said there was too much red dirt road to make it out there in the car, that it sat too low and that the roads were in bad shape, worse than going to Potrero Guazu. Abrelia and my nephews said that the road was in good shape, better than going to Potrero.

So off we went in the little Daewoo. Just me, the two woman, and three girls all under eight. No cell phone. No map. Of course from Caazapa to Caaguazu was all paved and we arrived in good time, about an hour and a half with a short stop in Villarica to raid the ATM. In Caaguazu, we made a potty break, filled up the Daewoo, and started down the dirt road. I remember asking how far it was to Abrelia´s house. She responded through Raquel something about 80 kilometers. The road wasn´t too bad, especially by Paraguayan standards. We were probably averaging about 45 kph, so I thought we would be there in no time. Did I mention that it had rained very hard three or four days prior to this trip? Well actually that didn´t really seem to come into play until after about 50 km on the dirt road. The road was really decent until we hit a long stretch of what was pretty much sand that probably was about 1.5 feet deep. By the time I realized that we were in the middle of it and losing traction, it was too late. The car just stopped. It wouldn´t go backward or forwards. We were perched on the center and the wheel ruts on either side were just too deep. Great! We were in the middle of nowhere and had no real options. There was a house close by, so Abrelia went to ask about borrowing a shovel or some implement to maybe dig ourselves out but there was nobody there with authority to lend anything out. We were still freshly stuck and were pondering what to do when a Nissan Pathfinder (or something similiar) came around the corner. There were three young men in it and they agreed to try and help us. First we tried pushing by hand but it wouldn´t budge. Finally the guy got some rope out of his vehicle and tried pulling us out backwards from the sand pit. No luck. Several motorcycles and a couple of four-wheel-drive trucks went by. The young man who was helping us changed tactics. He hitched up to the front of the Daewoo and quite easily got us to firm ground. In the mean time an old large farm type truck tried to make it through and also got stuck. I think the truck was too old and underpowered to get through, because it definitely had the clearance. The guys that were in it were well prepared as they got out and each had a shovel to dig themselves out. So we thanked our rescuers and offered them a couple of bucks for their kindness, but they refused saying to give the money to the poor.

Okay so we had our little setback. We were guaranteed that the rest of the way would not present any problems except that a bridge along the way was in poor shape. We went a little further and stopped in a little town to eat and pick up some supplies for Abrelia´s family. That took a little longer than I wanted but thought that it was no big deal because we only had a few kilometers left to go. We finally hit 80 km distance travelled. Abrelia said we still had a long way to go. Hmmm. We continued on. And on. And on. Finally at the 120 km mark, we made it. I think there was a slight gap in communications on the distance we needed to go. I guess Abrelia had actually said that her town was 80 km from another town along the way. Anyway, we made it and her family was glad to have her back.

We went with the intention of spending the night. When we were making good time and the distance was thought to be substantially shorter, I had started to think that maybe we would be able to get there, visit a little while and return to the paved road all before dark. The reality was that we didn´t get there until between 3 and 4 and that there was no way to visit, leave and make it back to Caaguazu before dark and then go on to Caazapa.

My brother-in-law Rosalino is a very nice man. He greeted us warmly and made us feel very welcome. Lourdes and I went with him to get some mandioca. He hitched up a small cart to a horse and off we went. Lourdes loved it. She couldn´t stop grinning. Rosalino and I talked about his land, how he used to make charcoal from wood in a big oven but it was too much work and besides the oven collapsed. His primary use of the land is to grow herba. Apparently, the leaves of this tree are harvested, dried, cut, and sold to make a sort of tea. So we got to where the mandioca was. Rosalino made short work of cutting the plant with his machete and pulling the roots out. Lourdes helped carry the mandioca back to the horse cart. We climbed in and made our way back to the house. Again Lourdes was in heaven. Along the way, the horse let out some gas. Lourdes mixed her english with her spanish and said ¨horsey pedo¨.

Abrelia and Rosalino live way out in the middle of nowhere. I don´t even know the name of the little town (if you can call it a town). It turned dark and we had duck for supper and by 8 we were getting ready for bed. Raquel and I were outside brushing our teeth and I was astounded by the stars in the sky. It´s very difficult to find a place near my house where the night sky doesn´t prevent you from seeing the stars clearly. The sky was clear and I could see every star, not just the bigger brighter ones. It was amazingly beautiful. I wish I knew more about astrology, I mean astronomy.

We made it home the next day without incident. Abrelia was very proud that we stayed with them since we´ve never stayed with Juaquina or at the parent´s house.

Time for now. We´ll be arriving home next Wednesday. If anything else comes up, I´ll try to post.

Trans Chaco Rally x 2

I was out of touch for a short while. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Holy Week we went to the in-law´s house. We didn´t spend the night there but I didn´t have the chance to make it to the Internet Cafe to post any updates, then it was closed on Saturday and Sunday. Monday and Tuesday were travel days to visit a sister-in-law´s house far, far away.

The family tradition here for Holy Week is to get together and make chipas for the Friday when they can´t eat meat. So Wednesday they made hundreds of chipas and Thursday they all got together to grill chancho. Okay, I don´t know how to describe a chipa, but I´ll try. A chipa is made from corn-meal and made into little cakes and bagels and baked in an oven. The oven is a round earthen oven that is superheated by burning wood inside. All the ashes and wood are removed and then the cakes get cooked from the heat that built up. Chancho is pork.

On Good Friday, we were out in the country again and it looked like rain. To me, it looked like rain before we went and the whole time we were there it looked like it was going to rain. Finally, we decided we better hit the road before we ran into the rain. The reason it´s so important to beat the rain is because of the 40 plus kilometers of dirt road that is in pretty bad shape without rain and becomes a quagmire when wet. Well, we didn´t beat the rain. It came down hard. I couldn´t see a foot in front of the car in most places. We crept along slowly, trying to stay out of the worst parts of the road and making sure we didn´t hit anybody or anything. We decide to continue to Boqueron which is about two-thirds of the way to Caazapa. The road to that point had lots of rocks so we weren´t too worried about getting stuck. We safeley made it to Boqueron and the rain, correction, the downpour subsided. My brother-in-law said we should be okay to make it to Caazapa if we continued. If we waited, the road would really soak up the water and be impassable. Off we went. The going wasn´t too bad and as we got close to Caazapa, we came upon a four-wheel drive vehicle. It was going much slower than me but I couldn´t risk passing it because there wasn´t a good place to pass. I slowed down and stayed behind it. The closer we got to Caazapa, the sloppier the road became. The vehicle in front was creating a nice rut for me to follow in and we were doing well. Then we encountered a long rut that was full of water. Too full. The car, a Daewoo something, sputtered to a stop in the water. It wasn´t too deep, just deep enough that with our momentum, the engine got doused and died. It wouldn´t start. We waited and tried to start it. No luck. It was acting as if the battery was dead. We waited and waited and tried again still with no success. After about thirty minutes or more, it finally started and we were on our way. We made it to Caazapa. The little Daewoo came through.

Well I better go for now. I´ll try and continue on later.

Sir, your Armani suits have arrived.

If I forgot to say so in an earlier post, our baggage arrived in Asuncion Saturday afternoon. Our rental car agent was able to retrieve them and put them on a bus to Caazapa. We got them that night at midnight and it seems as though everything arrived in good condition. Gracias a Rene Palacios de Sudamerica Rent-a-car!

Stampede, Sunday Bingo, Pikivoli and Attack of the Killer Chicken

I tried to blog yesterday but the connection here was really slow for some reason. Today it´s going reasonable fast so I thought I would catch up. I´m blogging from an internet cafe in Caazapa. It was here last year but was terribly slow so I only used it once. I hear there are a couple of other internet connections here but I haven´t tried to find them yet.

For Deb: Our neighbor is looking after the cat and dogs at home. She´s been a terrific help in the past and we´re lucky to live next to such great people.

We´ve been out to Potrero Guazu several times and Lourdes loves being outside in the warm weather and the family loves spending time with her. On one of the trips, we stopped to visit a relative and we were parked in the street talking to a couple of aunts. An uncle was nearby trying to corral some cows. It seems that one of the ex-bulls was a little randy and wanted to fool around a little and was after some of the cows. In the process of keeping the peace, a mini stampede came our way. Nobody got hurt and there probably wasn´t much danger but it´s still unsettling to have a large, determined bovine headed your way.

We also got to play bingo. I didn´t really come close to winning anything, but my nephew won an entire fried chicken so lunch was free. I think everyone enjoyed playing. My nephew also came close to winning the final grand prize of 300,000 Guaranis in a blackout game. The rate is currently just under 1 to 6000, so it was roughly $50. He didn´t win but there were some anxious moments as a couple of people thought they had the entire board covered only to find out that they didn´t so there was a second and third chance.

Later I went back with a brother-in-law and a nephew to watch pikivoli. Pikivoli is similar to volleyball in that you play with a volleyball and play on a volleyball court (in this case grass), but you can´t use your hands. The players must only use their chests, head and feet to play. I´m not sure which is more popular here, futbol (soccer) or pikivoli. It was pretty entertaining to watch and there were some pretty talented players. Raquel said that kids grow up playing pikivoli and it was obvious. I wouldn´t mind trying it sometime but I think it would be difficult for me since I can´t see very well without my glasses. I would also be at a real disadvantage since I have no talent at this sort of thing. Maybe someday I´ll have corrected vision and be able to give it a shot.

Last thing and I´m going to go. Lourdes loves all the animals out here and has no fear of them. At her grandma´s house she got to chase chickens all day with no problems. However when we went to visit an aunt, a rooster took exception to someone trying to grab one of its kin. Poor Lourdes ended up with a couple of welts/scratches on the back of her leg. She didn´t cry or at least didn´t cry much and said "chicken bad girl" and still has no fear of the animals.

Ciao for now!

Fish soup and spaghetti with beans

It´s Saturday and my Armani suits still have not arrived. I have an insurance policy for this vacation and after what seemed like no results from the airline that brought us here, I decided to call the policy´s Travel Advisor or Travel Assistant or whatever they call themselves. They allow you to call collect. FYI to make a collect call from Caazapa, Paraguay to the US, dial 0012. Let me backtrack a moment. We flew from home to Chicago and then to Miami on an AMERICAN AIRLINE whose name shall remain anonymous so that I am not libel or committing libel or whatever you say when you write something bad about a person or company. From Miami to Sao Paulo, Brazil and on to Asuncion, Paraguay, we flew on a non-AMERICAN carrier. The folks in Asuncion tried but didn´t seem to get any help or response from the American Airline.

My travel insurance dude connected me to the American Airline and stayed on the line to help me. The lady at the American Airline was not very cooperative or helpful at first. I didn´t have the baggage claim tickets with me because we left them in Asuncion with our rental car agent. Our rental car agent is going to claim our bags and put them on a bus so that they get to us eventually. So the lady on the phone from the American Airline said she couldn´t help us if we didn´t have the baggage claim tickets because otherwise she just had a blank computer screen. Even though I wanted to reach through the phone line and strangle her with her own headset, I managed to stay calm. I explained to her a little of what happened and she miraculously was able to search recent claims by my last name and found out that the bags were still in Chicago and that they were scheduled to go out that afternoon with a possible arrival in Asuncion on Saturday afternoon. I then asked that if they didn´t arrive on Saturday, and I call back, would they be able to tell me with certainty that the bags left Chicago. She said she couldn´t because they would be transferred to another non American Airline once they arrived in Miami. I couldn´t get it through her thick skull that I was not concerned about the other carrier, that I wanted to be able to know if the bags left Chicago. Finally she relented that superivisors could do a sort of world trace that goes beyond the American Airline and might be able to help me with that. Geez! I think there have been terrorists who have given more information with less prodding than this lady. Afterwards my travel insurance dude said that now that we have the baggage claim numbers again, he will be able to help us track the luggage if it doesn´t arrive.

Our drive to Caazapa in our rental car was a bit of a mess. We were given directions from our hotel to get to the ¨ruta¨ but the lack of clear street signs or road signs or city signs got us all kinds of mixed up. Raquel doesn´t know the way, and the last time I drove, my brother-in-law was the navigator. We got really good directions from a gentleman who was waiting for his wife/girlfriend/sister/friend. Those directions got us to a fork of two rutas. I don´t know why, but I got my thinking all screwed up and took the wrong ruta. By the time we found out we were headed in the wrong direction, we had travelled a good ways out of the way. Fortunately we were given some good directions on a short cut to get us back on the correct ruta.

So we´ve been in Caazapa a couple of days now and Lourdes loves being out in the nice weather playing with her family, chasing chickens, and showing off how cute she is. The food has been pretty good over all. The meat is usually a little tough, but tolerable. We had a couple of traditional meals to include a fish soup one time and spaghetti with beans another time. They were both quite good, the only complaint about the fish soup would be the tiny bones that are inherent in certain fish and the fact that the skin was left on it.

Time to go.

Lost in Translation

Day 2 in Paraguay. Still no luggage. We were advised this morning that it was in Brazil and would arrive this afternoon on another airline. We called again and it seems that our stuff is still in Chicago. I don´t know why it´s in Chicago when we were told that it was in Brazil. Maybe it went to Brazil and back to Chicago. I don´t know. Don´t know when it´s going to arrive. The airline said we have to claim it when it arrives so it can go through customs or we can designate someone and they can claim it, go through customs with it, and send it on to us.

After finding out that our stuff isn´t here and there´s no guarantee it will arrive, we´ve decided to rent a car so we can get to Caazapa and back at our pace instead of relying on the bus.

I´ll post when I can.

Blogging in Spanish

I´m blogging from Asuncion, Paraguay tonight. We are spending the night here at the Hotel Portal del Sol instead of going on out to Caazapa. The in-laws don´t know we are in country or that we are even coming.

It´s been a long trip so far and not has gone smoothly. Our first flight was delayed due to bad weather in Chicago causing us to miss our connection in Chicago. Fortunately there was another flight departing about the time we got to Chicago so we were switched to that one. The flight out of Miami wasn´t delayed significantly but we had to wait in line to get our boarding passes reviewed. We were late getting out of Sao Paulo, Brazil, but it didn´t matter because we didn´t have anyone waiting for us.

The biggest problem so far has been that our luggage is still in Chicago. We went shopping this evening at the Shopping del Sol and that was a trippy experience that makes me appreciate shopping at home. First, if you find something you like, they take it away to the counter and do up a ticket while you continue shopping. They give you a copy of the ticket and when you´re ready to check out, you present your ticket(s) to the cashier. She then rings it all up and you pay. She then stamps all your tickets and gives them back to you. You then give your tickets to another person and that person collects all the items (already grouped together by ticket) and compares your ticket(s) with the ticket(s) of all the items already ticketed and bagged. She removes the ticket(s) that are on the bag, puts your stamped ticket on the bag and then she stamps the tickets she removed from the bag. After all the ticket exchanging and stamping is over, you are free to leave with your hard-earned purchases.

I will never complain about shopping in the US again.

Chicken Lourdes

Lourdes saw Chicken Little at the movies and now it's out on DVD. I thought she would be excited if I bought it for her. It came with a couple of PEZ dispensers. Well she really enjoyed having the DVD and the PEZ dispensers. She took them with her when we went shopping at Kroger. When we got home, we opened the DVD and put it in the player and thought she would sit there enthralled. She didn't care.

Today, Adam brought in some Chicken Little glasses for Lourdes so I thought I'd post a pic.

You suck!!

We were at a Rivermen game a litte ways back. The referee made what seemed to be bad call, at least in the eyes of the fans. They expressed their disappointment with the ref by chanting "REF YOU SUCK" for a short time. After the crowd died down, a little voice chimed in "You suck! You suck!". Guess who it was.

Well if you guessed Lourdes, then you are correct. She hasn't forgot it and still says it. In fact, I think that she thinks it's an appropriate salutation. I've called from work to see how Raquel and Lourdes are and she'll answer the phone "You suck!" So if she ever says that to you, please don't take it the wrong way.

The 3 foot giant

Lourdes had her 2 year checkup with her pediatrician. She measured a whopping 36" putting her in the 94th percentile. She weighed 28.5 lbs on the day of the visit and that was a little lower than her normal weight. She had caught a bug the previous week and was spewing from both ends for a few days. Even after she was over the bug, she easily gagged and spit up for a few more days. She's all better now and weighed in at 31.5 lbs this week. She also has big feet.

By popular demand

Here's my fearless circus performer. Sorry the picture is a little grainy, but we're still getting used to our new digital camera. Our previous little Kyocera died after almost a year and it was still under warranty. When Radio Shack couldn't fix it, they offered us a new Casio.

Lourdes turned two last Sunday. We waited until this weekend to celebrate since I had to work last weekend. She had a Blue's Clues cake and Chicken Little place settings (couldn't find Blue's Clues stuff at the last minute). She really enjoyed having "Happy Birthday" sung to her and blew out her candle like a big girl.

Mother Nature also turned on the "Terrible Two's" switch recently. Even so, she's not too bad...yet.

Winter Wonderland

This past week saw some pretty low temperatures and a pretty fair amount of snowfall. Not a whole lot to report otherwise. The Rivermen have lost the last three games that we have attended. Are we bad luck or do they need to work on their defense? I think they've got to work on their defense because we'll be going to a few more games I'm sure.

They lost last night to the Milwaukee Admirals. The only highlight of the game was when D.J. King beat up someone on the other team. As I type, they are playing in Chicago and it's tied up 1-1. Hopefully they'll pull out a road win.

The Survivor season finale starts in a little bit. Who will win the million? Tuesday night will be the end of The Amazing Race. Which family will win? What will I do with my Tuesday and Thursday nights now?

She'll probably get a lump of coal

Lourdes likes characters like Chuck E. Cheese and the Rivermen mascot named The Captain. Last year she even liked Santa Claus. This year she didn't seem to like Santa so much or at least that's what her crying seemed to indicate. We had to settle for the following Polaroid of us holding her behind Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Santa Claus arrived at the base on Saturday afternoon after a long flight on his C-130. He brought presents for all the little boys and girls. Lourdes must have been a good girl because she received a baby doll and a Mary-Kate or Ashley doll. Everyone commented on how pretty Lourdes was in her dress. Some couldn't believe how big she is. Other than crying at Santa, she was a very good girl. We rewarded her by taking her to see Chicken Little. She was very interested in the movie and didn't make a peep. I have to give it two thumbs up.

So cute!!

Lourdes loves little animals. This is a dachshund puppy from my mom's dog Cindy.

Cindy actually had 6 puppies, but 2 did not live. There are 3 males and this little female. This pup is a little over 3 weeks in this picture. They've all started to open their eyes and are moving about. Lourdes was thrilled to death and did not want to put any of the puppies down. She did a pretty good job of gently handling the pups but had a problem with picking them up and putting them down.

The female pup is already spoken for, but the three males are available for purchase. There are two males that appear similiar with sort of a grayish color and black spots. The other male is a fawn or isabella color (kind of a yellow-tan). The sire and dam of the litter are both long-hair dapples so we hope the pups have long hair. Anyone interested in buying one of the males can leave a comment and I'll see what I can do. Many people have said they are interested but nobody has made a firm commitment.

Our Thanksgiving went smoothly. Mike and Marla did a fine job of hosting. The spread included deep-fried turkey, baked ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, green bean caserole, pumpkin pie and cheesecake.

It will be Christmas before we know it.

Just playing with flickr

No, that's not the horse's name. Flickr is an easy-to-use, on-line photo organizer. Hey, it's free!!

Sliding down the links page....

Greg has slowly moved my blog down his list of favorite links. I'm now second to the last, just above his link to Funky Winkerbean. It's my own fault; I haven't posted since February.

I closed my Prodigy account quite some time ago, but my neglected webpage is still there. I also used it to store photos that I link to in my blog. Now I'm going to try FLICKR to store and link pictures. Let's see how it goes:

I loved this picture...

...so I thought I would share it. Raquel took this picture of Lourdes. Seems like she's in the middle of a statement or blink or something. Or maybe she's really tired. Or part Asian.

Scooby-dooby-doo, where are you?

At the hockey game of course!

We went to see the Rivermen this afternoon and Scooby Doo was there. When Lourdes saw him, she went nuts over him like she did when she saw Chuck E. Cheese. She screamed, she jumped, she completely went rigid with excitement. Scooby was kind enough to let us take a picture with him and Lourdes didn't want to let him go. We followed him a little bit and when the kids cleared out, we set Lourdes down and she ran over to him and grabbed his legs and wouldn't let him go.

The Riverman have a mascot called the Captain. One of these days we're going to have to introduce him to Lourdes. She's already crazy about him, I'm sure she'll love to meet him.

Part baby, part flying monkey

She's a daredevil!!




No fear.

How much does a Fisher-Price horse eat?

Please let us know!!

Cold water

I've been a member of the American Legion for several years. One of the benefits of being a member is to receive The American Legion Magazine. I don't always read the entire magazine. I usually thumb through it and occasionally read an article. There's always a page (most times it's the last page) of jokes. I almost always read the jokes because the majority of the time the jokes are not funny. I don't know why I enjoy reading these bad jokes but I always torture myself with them. Every so often there will be a joke that I consider funny. I've often thought that when I find a joke from this magazine, I should post it here to share with everyone. So here goes the first installment of "FUNNY JOKE FROM THE AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE".

This one is from the February 2005 issue and the joke is not credited to anyone.

Jim went to visit his 90-year-old grandfather. The next morning, his grandfather prepared a breakfast of eggs and bacon. Jim noticed a filmy substance on his plate and asked, "Are these plates clean?" His grandfather replied, "Those plates are as clean as cold water can get them, so go on and finish your meal."

That afternoon, while eating hamburgers his grandfather made for lunch, Jim noticed tiny specks around the edge of his plate and what appeared to be dried egg yolk. He asked again, "Are you sure these plates are clean?" Without looking up from his hamburger, his grandfather answered, "I told you, those dishes are as clean as cold water can get them. Don't ask me about it no more!"

Later that afternoon, Jim left to get dinner in a nearby town. As he was leaving, his grandfather's dog started to growl and wouldn't let him pass. Jim yelled, "Grandpa, your dog won't let me out."

Without diverting his attention from the football game on TV, his grandfather shouted, "Coldwater, go lie down!"

This has been the first installment of "FUNNY JOKE FROM THE AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE".

Part baby, part monkey

Okay, Lourdes has grown a lot in the last few weeks, but check this out: SHE'S TRYING TO CLIMB THINGS!!

Now for something completely different: I noticed that in one of my many, many postings last year, I talked about our new arrival Pancho. I said that he's a cutie and maybe I'll post pics later. Well I guess it's later cause here's finally a picture of him. Just a quick reminder, Pancho is a wiener dog (miniature dachshund) and in Paraguay they say Pancho for hot dog, so that's how he got his name.

Chuck E., The Sequel

Angela brought in some pictures of our Chuck E. Cheese adventure. Thank you for sharing, Angela!

As I was scanning a picture into the computer and then manipulating the size, Lourdes went bananas. She pointed and screamed at the following picture.

So I had to print out her own copy to put in her little photo album!

Who knew my daughter could love a rat?

Saturday was a busy day. We got up and moving fairly early. Fairly early for us that is. Usually a day off is spent sleeping in or lounging around most of the morning. But we things to do, people to see, places to be.


We first packed up our laundry and went to the laundromat. We left directly from there to go to Chuck E. Cheese's to meet some friends. Our friend has a little boy who is just a few months older than Lourdes and he apparently had a terrific time at Chuck E. Cheese's not too long ago.


Lourdes seemed to enjoy the little toddler rides - as long as they weren't moving. When the ride started moving, she had a look of not-quite-terror-but-close-enough on her face. But she definitely like looking at everything. The funny part was when we went to see Chuck E. while he was admiring all the patrons who were adding to his 401k. Lourdes saw Chuck E. and went absolutely bananas! Her face turned red, she stiffened her body and started shaking and screaming! She LOVED Chuck E.! All her commotion was like someone winning Publisher's Clearinghouse. We thought she would be scared of him, but she was completely drawn to him. She touched his face and grabbed his hand. A little later we watched Chuck E. with a bunch of children gathered around him dancing. Lourdes was still going nuts, screaming and kicking. On the way out, we bought her a Chuck E. doll which she immediately hugged and would not let out of her hands.



From Chuck E.'s, we went home to relax for a while before heading out to a Riverman game. We've been to several hockey games this season and the Riverman are turning things around a bit. They got off to a slow start, but have won a high percentage of their games lately. Saturday night they were playing Toledo. The Rivs had moments where they looked really good and more where they looked bad. Toledo would score, then the Rivs would score. In the third period, it was tied at three and the Rivs looked like they might salvage a win. Suddenly, a defender fell down and it was a breakaway, two on our goalie. Toledo handled the puck well and snuck one in to take the lead. Peoria had about a minute to try and answer so they pulled the goalie to have an extra man trying to score. Unfortunately, there was a faceoff near center ice and Toledo managed to put the puck in the open net out of the faceoff! That was it for the Rivermen. Less than a minute left, there was no real chance of a comeback so people started to leave the arena. I wanted to wait until the bitter end in case there was a fight. I wasn't disappointed (well I was disappointed about the loss) because with about 15 seconds left a couple of guys started duking it out. I don't think a hockey game is complete without a couple of fights. If we don't win the game, we should at least make them pay for it.

Later!

Everybody was kung-fu fighting

I know it's been a while since I posted so you don't have to remind me.

Guess what?! Lourdes is walking!! She pretty much started right around Christmas with a couple of awkward steps followed by a fall. In no time at all it turned in to trips across the room. Now she's completely mobile and pretty smooth at it as well. I think she'll be running by February!

Latest word on our upcoming trip to Paraguay is...it's on hold until we get some paperwork from Immigration. We're hoping that in March or April we'll be able to go. Cross our fingers! The family is very eager to see their little grandbaby.

Our little Christmas elf

You can leave comments now

I just changed the setting for my blog so that anyone who wants to can leave a comment. I didn't realize I had it set for members only.

So go ahead, leave a comment.

I'm dreaming of a White.....Thanksgiving!

It snowed today. It started off as rain, and then became snow and rain, and finally just snow. There was quite a bit of accumulation in a short period. Radio reports said the roads were slick, that there were lots of vehicles in the ditches and many collisions. I drove to the gym in the thick of the snowstorm. People were being very cautious, but I did see one Camaro in the ditch (just enough off the road to be stuck).

My workout was pretty good; I put up some good numbers without feeling completely drained. Maybe Friday I’ll have to work a little harder, especially since I’m skipping the cardio workout tomorrow (it is Thanksgiving after all).

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I’m going to do one of those cheesy lists of things for which I am thankful.

1. My wife Raquel – she’s beautiful, loving, and I’m blessed to have her.


2. My baby Lourdes – she’s a beautiful, beautiful baby and I couldn’t possibly love her more than I already do.


3. My family – you have to love your family, no matter what, and I do


4. My friends – some are coworkers, some aren’t but they’re all special.


5. My job – I’ve got a really great job: good pay, diverse work.

My coworkers – Adam and Jerry are the greatest coworkers. We work hard, we have fun, we make fun of each other, we support each other, we teach each other, we learn from each other and we respect each other. But mostly we make fun of each other. I also work with and for many others that are also terrific people that keep things interesting.

6. My pets – they are always happy to see me (especially P-p-p-p-peanut!).


7. My truck – hello, it’s snowing out there!


8. My motorcycle – didn’t put much time on this summer either, but I’m not getting rid of it!

Well have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Election results are in, and the winners are.....

Who cares, wanker. This ain't no political blog.

I've taken to calling my baby Lourdes Banana. It rolls off the tongue with ease. Say it. Not 'it'. Say 'Lourdes Banana'. Wasn't that fun?

Lourdes Banana is standing. She'll probably be walking by the time I get done typing this. She's going through the stage that makes every man cringe: She's touching buttons that power various electronic toys (tv, xbox, ps2, vcr, computer, and printer). I'm going to have to put things out of reach, or put oversized mittens on her hands to prevent her from being very dexterous.

Just sent a package to Paraguay today. Very expensive, over $30, and it's not going to get there for another 4-6 weeks. From now on, we'll just Western Union money. It's cheaper, easier, and guaranteed.

On the immigration front, Raquel's green card is going to take another couple years. I don't understand it. We applied for her green card and the application was approved. However, she either goes back to Paraguay and gets the green card there, or we apply here for a change of status. I don't know if it would be easier and faster to do this through the embassy in Asuncion or wait the two plus years here in the states. We're going to do the waiting thing here. In the mean time, her VISA expires in April and then her passport expires in October. Why can't this be easy?

I think I might go play xbox for a while.

Don't be scared....

I know it's been a while since I last blogged. No excuses. And I won't make any promises to get back into blogging on a regular basis. I'm just going to apologize for not being regular (no bathroom jokes please).

Lourdes is crawling! She's been at it for about a month now. She's not extremely fast but she's fast enough to grab a doggie chew and sit happily and chew.

Pancho

So we've got an infant, two dogs, and  a cat.  What else could we need?

How about another dog?

Mom's dog Cindy had her second litter a couple months ago and we decided we wanted another dog, so now we have Pancho. Pancho is a long-haired blue speckled miniature dachshund and he's Peanut's half-brother. He's a cutie, maybe a picture to follow in another post.

I decided on the name Pancho because that is the word often used in South America (or at least in Paraguay and Chile) for hot dog.

Blogging shouldn't be this tough

Apologies to all who read my Blog (both of you) for lack of updates. It's been since early June and here it is towards the end of June. To be fair, one week of June I was "deployed" to Volk Field, Wisconsin. The rest of the time, I was just lazy.

I wanted to write about taking my daughter to the mall and all the misadventures we had there, but alas, we didn't go to the mall and we had no misadventures.

I could write about the "deployment" but nothing too interesting happened to me there. I hung out a little with my friends, but found myself missing Lourdes more than I was enjoying myself. To sum up the trip, I taught CPR for five days and fought the most ferocious mosquitoes this side of the Mississippi. Within three minutes of arriving at Volk, I was bitten three times. Needless to say I fought back with some variant of Off with a twenty-something percent DEET that I purchased at the Tomah WalMart. I didn't really like the idea of wearing a chemical repellent but it was better than suffering the wrath of those blood thirsty insects. If I lived there, I would have to plant those anti-mosquito plants all around my house. The scent of citronella candles burning would lead you directly to my house. I would figure out a way to screen in my entire yard. I'm not exaggerating, those mosquitoes were thick.

But I'm a survivor. Hopefully there are no long-term effects from DEET exposure and the twitching will subside. Hopefully the half dozen bites I got won't result in West Nile virus. Or Lupus.

Hey, I celebrated my first Father's Day! Lourdes was kind enough to give me a Father's Day card..in Spanish! ¡Qué inteligente! She also gave me a big box of Hershey's candy (Pot o'Gold I think). What a little sweetie she is.

That's all I can muster right now. Maybe I'll be a little more attentive to my poor Blog in the future and not let down my reader(s) as well.

A cap in your a$$

I'm a lean, mean Air Force trained killing machine. Sort of. I'm not so lean at the moment. I'm not too mean most of the time, but I can get a little cranky. I'm definitely Air Force trained. And I can be a killing machine, especially if you are a paper target located 7, 15, or 25 meters away from me and my M-9.

Today at drill, I fired the M-9, nine millimeter handgun. I've shot a nine millimeter once or twice before, but this was the first time trying at a military firing range. To be considered "qualified" to shoot the M-9, one must put a certain number of bullets on the silhouette at the aforementioned distances. I think the number was 30 out of 36 but I'm not certain. However, to be considered an "expert", one must put 30 out of 36 bullets in a circle in the center of the silhoutte. Somehow I was able to put 33 out of 36 bullets in the center of mass making me an "expert" and eligible to wear the Air Force Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon. In almost 20 years of military service, I have fired the M-16 several times and I although I have always qualified with the weapon, I have never earned the Air Force Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon with the M-16 and now in my first attempt with the M-9 I've finally got it!

In other news, we are going to get another puppy. That's right Dover and Peanut are going to have a little brother. Actually this will be Peanut's half-brother and Dover's foster bother. Peanut's mom had a litter of five (actually six but one was stillborn)puppies recently and we are going to get the only male. This little guy is kind of a blue-gray color with black spots (a dapple) and is full-blooded dachshund. His mom is a long-hair dapple and his dad his a long-hair black and tan. It's still a little early to tell if any of this litter will have long hair.

Not much else to report at the moment.

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

Let my people go, you damn dirty apes!

The Ten Commandments is on tonight.

Friday night we went to see The Rock in Walking Tall. Not the greatest movie in the world but not bad for an action flick. I wished The Rock would have kicked some more butt.

I had drill this weekend, things went smoothly. The only problem was the time change. I can't remember the last time I had to spring forward and it wasn't a drill weekend.

We went to see Hellboy tonight. I found it to be pretty entertaining overall. The main character was played by the same dude that played the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. I feel sorry for the guy, he's so ugly he has to play freaks in films.

Lourdes did just fine in both movies and is doing wonderfully in general. Still growing.

Lourdes says hi.

Well, she didn't say it, but I'm sure that she would if she could. I was sitting here holding her and didn't know what to write and she was intently looking at the screen so I interpretted that to mean she wanted to say hi to everyone.

This weekend was a full plate. Friday night we went to see The Ladykillers at the new Rave Motion Pictures cinema. The capacity for the movie was 442. I had Pibb Xtra and SnoCaps. We enjoyed the movie thoroughly and Lourdes slept through the whole show. She's such a good baby.

Saturday we got a late start but we went south for the day. We first stopped to visit my Grandma and to introduce her to her 45th great grandchild, but Grandma wasn't home. So we went to Kim and Randy's house to show off our little Lourdes. Katy was there with her little girl. Cammie is a couple months older than Lourdes but not a lot bigger, apparently she was pretty tiny when she was born. Poor thing is getting over a bit of a cold and seemed a little fussy, but not too bad.

From Kim's house, we tried to visit Dave and Marcia. They weren't home. We next tried my dad's house, but he wasn't home. So we went to the El Matador in Mt. Zion to eat and to show Lourdes to a Paraguayan lady who works there. Next we went to mom's house but she wasn't home, but that was ok because I wanted to work on her computer. It won't print, and I know it's not the printer. It's not the USB port, because other USB devices work. I think the operating system has gotten itself corrupted. After toiling with the computer for awhile, we went back to visit Dave and Marcia.

Today we went to see Secret Window. Again, Lourdes slept through the whole movie. Such a good baby. After the movie, we went to WalMart and bought, among other things, a vibrating bouncer for Lourdes. She seems to like it. I wish I had one big enough for me.

Back to work...

Today I went back to work. It was very different leaving home this morning. Raquel always sends me off with a kiss and tells me to hurry home. Today, Raquel and Lourdes sent me off with a kiss and told me to hurry home.

Time went by very slowly today. 9 a.m. felt like 11, and so on and so on. After work I was going to exercise. It's been since early December since I've worked out at all so I was going to ease in to it by going for a walk. I ran in to a guy who had a baby in February and we ended up talking about our babies and I didn't get any exercise.

I've chunked up over the last few months. I weighed in at 235 today and it's not a good 235. Since early December, I've come straight home from work and watched a lot of TV and played a lot of Playstation and eaten lots of sweets. I'm going to get back on track.

Last night I couldn't sleep. I went to bed at a reasonable time and fell asleep fine. Unfortunately at 10:20, Peanut stepped on my left testicle and woke me. It wasn't a pleasant way to be awakened that involved my genitals. For some reason I couldn't sleep after that. I tossed and turned for an hour, then I got up and read about math on the internet for about an hour and a half. I read about speed arithmetic. I might look at that a little closer. In no time, I'll be helping my girl with her homework.

Hopefully, I'll sleep better tonight. Watch where you step Peanut.

Growing like a weed

Yesterday we took Lourdes to the pediatrician for her 2-week checkup. She weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs 2 oz and measured 21 inches. That's over a pound since she was in the hospital. Doctor says Lourdes is perfect, but we already knew that.

Lourdes did seem a little clingy yesterday. She did not want to be left in her bassinet, not even when she fell asleep. Maybe she was cranky because her umbilical cord fell off.

After the doctor visit, we went to a new movie theater close to the doctor's office. Rave Motion Pictures Grand Prairie 18 just opened last weekend. They boast that there is true stadium seating so no one will ever block your view of the screen. They also boast about 48 inches of legroom between each row. When we pulled in sight of the theater, I was impressed. It's gimongous! And they weren't kidding about the roominess. There's enough space in the rows that if the theatre is crowded and someone has to get a refill or use the facilities, they can walk, not sidestep, to the aisle and not once trip on someone or put their butt or crotch in another person's face. And the screen was huge as well!

We saw Taking Lives starring Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke. It was pretty good. I had Pibb Xtra and SnoCaps. I didn't even have to smuggle the SnoCaps. Oh and baby was perfect through the whole movie, not a peep.

I've been playing MX Unleashed on the PS2 lately. It's been very entertaining. I had been playing an old PS1 game called Syphon Filter with the intent of finishing it and playing the rest of the Syphon Filter series (through SF3, all designed for the PS1 console) in anticipation of Syphon Filter 4 for PS2 which is due out sometime this year. Maybe I'll get back to it again soon.

The dogs have been really good with Lourdes. They are definitely interested in her, but have been behaving. Unrelated to interaction with the baby, Dover has picked up a cool little trick. If the water bowl is empty, he picks it up and brings it to us to remind us that we need to take better care of them. Hopefully Lourdes will behave similarly.

Family Night Out

We went to see Hidalgo last night. Yes we took the baby and she was perfect. She slept through the whole movie until about the last 10 minutes, but Raquel fed her before she got very loud.

The movie was pretty good and I had Pibb Xtra and smuggled SnoCaps. I have to smuggle in the SnoCaps because the movie theater suddenly quit carrying them. Deb and Greg may also question Pibb versus my usual Cherry Coke. Well the theater doesn't carry any kind of cherry cola. Besides, Pibb Xtra is really good.

There was a cool looking trailer for a movie coming out this summer, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. It looks like 1930's sci-fi movie, only modernized.

Baby's sleeping the night better than I am. I have to get up at least a couple times to pee or let the dogs out. The last two nights, she's only got up once after we went to bed.

The dogs seem to like their little sister. They are definitely interested in her, they want to smell her and lick her, but then again who doesn't. Well everyone wants to smell a new baby, anyway.

Today, we'll be visiting Decatur/Mt.Zion and showing off our beautiful little Lourdes.

Welcome Lourdes!!

Lourdes Dianna came into our lives on 5 March 2004, weighing in at 7 lbs 7 oz and measuring 19.5". She's beautiful!!!

Not so miniature...

So you know we have two dogs a miniature dachshund and a miniature pinscher. They were due shots last week so we took them in on Friday. Peanut, the dachshund weighed in at 12.3 pounds and Dover the MinPin weighed in at a whopping 19.6 pounds! He's solid.

Friday night went to see the Rivermen play Johnstown. Awesome fight that got 2 players from each team thrown out as well as penalty time for others. The Rivermen won the fights and the game.

Saw Stuck on you on Saturday. Some funny parts but not as funny as I had hoped.

Sunday we cleaned the carpet. Puppy training took it's toll and it was time. The dogs still aren't 100 percent trained but they aren't that bad.

Played a lot KillSwitch this weekend and even finished it. That was both cool because everytime I got stuck, I eventually figured out what I needed to do to get through that section. It was also kind of disappointing because I've always had difficulty finishing these shoot'em up games. Maybe it just means I've progressed as a gamer. Who knows?

We had quite a bit of snow on Saturday, second time this season. The first time was the day after Thanksgiving and it melted the next day. This time it melted on Monday. Raquel thinks the snow is beautiful. Peanut loves playing in it. Not sure what Dover thinks of it.

Well I'm going to eat now. Talk to you later.

Did you have a good Día de Acción de Gracias?

That's Thanksgiving Day in spanish. We went to my father's house and enjoyed the turkey he made. My dad has hosted Thanksgiving for us for a long time now, kind of a tradition. My mom often does a Thanksgiving meal as well, but the acutual day depends on her work schedule, so this year she hosted on Wednesday evening. We live just far enough away that it would have been difficult to make it there since I had to work Wednesday, but fortunately plenty of others made it so her efforts were enjoyed by others.

This weekend was a PlayStation and movie weekend. I recently bought KillSwitch and logged several hours this weekend. It's a pretty cool shoot'em up game. It's very challenging for me, but I've made significant improvement. I can't believe how complicated it is to walk/run and aim/shoot. The directions said that it becomes second nature after some playing time. Hmmm...it's getting close to being second nature for me. Guess I better log more time. It's funny, in one section you have to get from point A to point B in certain amount of time. Well along the way, you have to kill about 25 or more guys who are shooting at you and throwing grenades at you. At first I couldn't make it through the first room because I was so concerned with time and there were at least eight guys shooting at me. I learned eventually that if I just take my time and just relax and stand out in the open and pick them all off one at a time, it's not so bad. I eventually made it through and on to a more difficult section.

The movies we saw were Timeline and The Missing. The first movie wasn't much to brag about, not a thumbs up nor a thumbs down. However, The Missing is really good. Opie directed this one and he did a terrific job, Raquel and I enjoyed it. Clint Howard makes his usual appearance in his brother's film, but it was kind of different, he was actually good (didn't hurt that his screen time was under 5 minutes.

You should be scared.

Last week we went to the dentist. Raquel couldn't get her teeth cleaned because she has a heart murmur (we already knew) and she has to take an antibiotic before the cleaning due to the possibility of infection. This required coordination with the obstetrician to get an approved antibiotic. So we've got the medicine, now we need to make another appointment with the dentist. Who knew a heart murmur could be dangerous for something so common as a trip to the dentist?

Friday night we went to the movies. Gothika is pretty chilling. The theater was packed and the audience was really in to the film, letting out collective gasps and shrieks. This was another movie that I didn't really think I would want to see but Raquel wanted to so we went. I thought it was pretty good.

Saturday, I helped Jerry a little bit. He's been working on his house for years, and this weekend he wanted to get the siding finished. I've never done siding before, so I don't know how much help I really was, but I was there. We stayed for pizza and wings and I played Playstation with Jake. We played football (not sure which version) and he creamed me the first game. I really wasn't sure how to play (meaning what buttons did what) but then Jerry showed me a play. The second game was all mine. I kicked his butt! The poor kid was dealing okay with getting beat, but as the game wore on, I kept scoring and he couldn't do anything. To make matters worse, Jerry and another guy were teasing Jake relentlessly. Suddenly, Jake couldn't take any more and burst into tears and couldn't breath right nor talk. Sound cruel? Well Jake had been talking smack the entire time he beat me the first game, so he was getting a taste of defeat. But I wasn't talking any smack. But in the end, Jake sucked it up and finished the game so he was a trooper in the end.

Sunday we went to see the Looney Toons movie. It was really quite funny, but I got really sleepy while watching it (no reflection on the movie). After the movie, we went to Menard's to buy a toilet snake, you know, one of those roto-rooter things. We were having problems with the sewer backing up into the basement. Yuck. So we bought this 25-foot long snake thing that you connect to a drill. I snaked out a bunch of stuff from the drain, mostly roots. After doing this a few times (and being generally disgusted both from the task and from lack of major success) I gave up.

Today, Roto-Rooter came out and snaked out (with their powerful snake) our sewer to about 110-feet. Now we can flush with confidence.

Aim for the mizzenmast!

So we went to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World yesterday. I must say, it is a very impressive movie. It appears they went to great lengths to make it look look authentic. I don't know what made me go see this movie, because the previews didn't make it appealing to me at all. For some reason we went, and I'm glad we did. It's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. The only complaint I have is that the accents took a while to get used to. If you go, keep in mind that it is about two hours and twenty minutes long.

That's all I want to write about. Good night!

Going in circles

A lazy Sunday afternoon. Temperature isn't too bad, but it's damp out. Flipping through broadcast tv and there's not much. NASCAR's final race of the season, so they're going in circles at 170 MPH. Bears vs. Rams on another channel, and neither team is playing well. Golf on another channel, just not interested at the moment.

We're going to see that new Russell Crowe movie, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World today.

Saw Elf last week. It was good. I had Dots.

I love the Budweiser Real Men of Genius commercials. My favorite is Mr. Foot-long-hot-dog Maker. Cuz he gives us what we all really want - a bigger wiener.

I read someone's blog saying that last night's Saturday Night Live was one the worst ever. Hmmm. I thought it was rather funny. I especially liked the way they made fun of the latest Prince Charles scandal. Seems the British press can't come out and directly talk about some accusations about Charles' private life due to libel laws. So this skit talked around the accusations. Another skit was Roy's comeback performance with the same tiger that injured him. I laughed out loud.

We've started work on finishing the attic. Not in any hurry. Before putting in insulation, we need to provide ventilation between the insulation and the roof. We're putting in Styrofoam rafter ventilation channels to begin.

Raquel's belly is getting bigger as Lourdes is growing inside. Everything is going fine with the baby. Raquel hasn't had any problems. She'll still get nauseous every so often, but nothing like the first few months.

Maybe Greg will put me back on his favorites.