Millennium Park Adventure

Last night, we went over to Millennium Park for the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. It was awesome! Man if you’ve never heard a 70-piece orchestra swing…

We (primarially The Boy and I) also spent some quality time at the Crown Fountain. That was also very cool.

Today, there’s the second day of the conference on tap, plus a vist to a college friend’s new pad in Evanston for dinner. Tomorrow, some kicking around downtown in the morning, then off to grandma’s house in the afternoon.

On the Road in Chicago

The Wife, The Boy and I went down into Confederate territory yesterday; all the way to Michigan Ave. in Chi-Town. I’m down here for a conference on designing web sites; gonna hear some of my heroes in the field tell me the way it is. The Wife and The Boy are headed for Millennium Park today to go get in some dancing and running around. Later, there’s a pool and hopefully some better sleep on the agenda.

Last night, after we got settled into the *tiny* hotel room on the 11th floor of the Marriott, The Boy was all “Go home now?” I was all like “I hear, you kiddo, but Daddy’s a masochist, so go to sleep, now.”

I’m *so* Proud

At the second toll booth in Illinois yesterday, I witnessed the smoothest ever government system in action. Check it out: The first tool booth we rolled through had some ridiculous toll amount – $1 even – all rounded and available in paper money. The traffic just rolled right through the booth with nary a chance to enjoy the bucolic Illinois countryside; What were they thinking?

The second toll booth was much more like what I’ve come to expect: A solid toll figure – $1.60 ‐ that allows citizens and visitors alike to become more familiar with all forms and denominations of good ol’ reliable coinage. And the Nickle Woman in the booth will forever have a place in my heart: Not only did she return our $0.40 of change in *nickles*, she did it with a huge Lutheran smile and bubbly “Have a great day!” only six minutes and thirteen seconds after we got in her line. The only thing missing was a nice big slice of Jell-O hotdish.

That level of customer service just made me blushingly proud to be a government worker.

Gettin’ on the culture train

In my web travels yesterday, I came across the Library of Congress website and noticed their “Lifelong Literacy” project. Of course I didn’t follow the link. But I did start thinking about what and how and when I read to The Boy and to myself. I decided that I need to start a deliberate campaign of introducing new reading material several times a week to both The Boy and the me.

Here’s my plan: Every couple of days, I’m gonna swing by one of the local public libraries and raid the children’s section and take a few new books home. I’m also going to (re)start reading fiction and poetry, and maybe even essays along with all the technical mumbo-jumbo I already have on my bookshelf. In addition, I’m going to order a few magazines for The Boy and for me, so there’s another source of fresh information and ideas coming into the house. I’m also going to try to print a poem a day to read to The Boy and The Wife. I’ll start with Billy Collins’s Poetry 180 website.

All this thinking about reading naturally led to me thinking about music, visual art, and performing art, too. Basically, it all comes down to wanting more contact with art in my life, and in The Boy’s life. I’m pretty sure The Wife won’t object either. I want to expose The Boy to at least one new song a day, as well as listening to favorites, and it’d be great if I can figure out a hi-fi way to get visual and performing arts a part of our daily diet, too.

Of course, all the tech stuff and other bits and bobs needs to stay in our lives, too, along with a healthy dose of running around, screaming like banshees, brandishing trains.

Binary solo – oh yeah!

Shampoo

Leaping
soaring
falling
screaming
smashing
bleeding
drowning
dying
gasping
healing
burning
believing
dancing
spinning
laughing
loving
wash
rinse
repeat

Conditioner

I say “up”
and you say _____.
I say “hot”
and you say _____.
I say “love”
and you say _____.
I say “a child’s soft touch”
and you say _____.
I say “god is what we do”
and you say _____.
I say “without malice”
and you say _____.
I say “beauty”
and you say _____.
I say “truth”
and you say _____.
I say “you”
and you say _____.

Well, now, isn’t that nice

I don’t know about you, but I just spent the last hour as a member of elite unit of bobbies in London using my newly-developing psychokinetic powers to battle an evil, psychotic killer. Oh, and he also had psychokinetic powers, and was maybe possessed.

Oddly, only the ending of the dream – the part where most of the other bobbies and I were cut in a thousand places, beaten, burned, and left paralyzed in a house filling with natural gas while the killer assumed the form of a wild boar with glowing eyes to take care of the last of our group – had any nightmare qualities.

The rest of the dream was spent playing baseball (without ever touching the “ball,” of course) with giant crystals, or sometimes granite boulders, wandering around the quaint little town of London, and playing free skee ball at the county fair.

I guess that’s what I get for watching Miyazaki when I’m tired.

New blog in the links

Well, sorta. It will be once I get off my dead ass and get the links in my theme somewhere. But for now, check out “Brews you can use.” Chris is a funny, funny man. Sometimes. But he’s always poignant. And it doesn’t hurt that a) we went to school together, and b) he officially (as of now, when I started the damn thing) belongs to the “Geeks Who Can Kick Your Ass” club.

Let the workout begin

Each year, usually in the fall, I do a workout. There are only eight reps, but the first seven are somewhere in the neighborhood of 140,000 pounds. Yesterday, when it was 92 and humid, I got serious about rep one. Ugh.

So yeah, this year’s firewood arrived: fifteen cords of nice, fresh-cut red oak. Every year, I get a little better at managing this influx of wood, which is good, seeing as how it’s our only heat. This year, my plan is to try to cut a saw-tank’s worth of gas each evening after work. If I can do that, the pile really only oughtta take a couple weeks to get cut to length.

Then, the sooner the better, I’ll get a bunch of friends over and rent a hydraulic woodsplitter or two and we’ll go nuts for the weekend. Hopefully by mid-September, all my wood will be cut and split and partially stacked. And then I’ll relax in my chair and sip mai-tais while nubile slave girls fan me with palm fronds. Man, do I love this time of year!