Sunday, June 29, 2008

Love the wife, hate the dog

Let me preface this post by stating that I love my wife, Jenny, and that I have her permission to post about this.

It is 3:46 in the morning. I am working solo out at capstone and get a txt from Jenny asking if it is thundering. Capstone is less than 10 miles away from where we live. I was mid-sentence typing a response and the phone rings. Jenny is panicking on the other end saying that someone is moving chairs on the parch and the dog is going crazy.

Not really sure what to say or do (I can't really leave five drug recovering addicts alone in the woods) I ask if she is sure its not just trucks passing. By this time she is wondering if she should call (not the cops) Casey.

After calling Casey she calls me back. I asked her why she didn't call 911 and her response was, "well it might just be someone stealing the propane tank." That is exactly my point, I tell her. I mean, what is Casey going to do? For all we know, it is some meth cook who ran out of propane!

So, let's recap, Jenny home alone, doesn't have handgun purchased partly for such a case as this, hears commotion outside and calls Casey (not cops). I said, "maybe the dog broke off the chain." "No, absolutely not, it was someBODY," she says. By this time I am getting pretty scared myself. I really don't want to have to go to a (possibly two) funerals.

Casey drives up and you guessed it, the dog was off the chain. That is chain #4 and collar #6 that she has broken. Breck might disappear tomorrow afternoon.

Needless to say, thank you Casey, Sunday lunch is on me this week!

*In Jenny's defense, as a child, she was victim of a peeping Tom and had her window broken when sh was home alone.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

A day (or week) in the Windy City

[Cross-Posted at Macs Class]
Chicago was a blast. Stressful, but a blast. We left around 11:00pm on Memorial Day and returned on Friday at about 11:45. I cannot say enough about the kids we took on this trip. They were polite and well behaved the whole time. Before this year, I could not have imagined taking eight students 600 miles away to a city of nearly 3 million people!

We got there on Tuesday afternoon and toured the Art Institute of Chicago. I have to admit, this was one of the things that I considered skipping to catch up on sleep but boy am I glad that I didn't. It was really cool to see some of the paintings that I've only seen in books. I was pretty ticked that I left my camera at the hotel because the pics that I got were on my blackberry. The first painting that I saw was Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte by Seuratt. It was unbelievable how BIG this painting is in real life! I'd say that it stood at least 15 feet tall. Maybe even 20 feet! Another painting that I really enjoyed was American Gothic by Wood. You see this done in parody everywhere and to see it in real life, up close and personal was real neat! Later that evening we went down to the Ford Oriental Theater and went back stage for Behind the Emerald Curtain and later to see the Musical, Wicked. Again, this was so cool! Without spoiling anything, the musical is based on the book, Wicked, and goes behind the scenes and takes a closer look at the characters, Elphaba (the wicked witch) & Galinda (the good witch) from the Wizard of Oz. If you are ever in Chicago, I highly recommend it, it is well worth the time and money! After the show, we walked around for what seemed like forever looking for Pizza Uno. Let me tell you, after eating there, I'd have walked twice as far to get it. It was amazing! Sandy ordered 5 pizzas and the waitress said, "mam, that will be way too much, you'll never be able to eat all that pizza." Well several of the boys took that as a personal slam against their manhood and said, "we'll eat all of it, in fact, order six pizzas!" Well, we did and took four of them out in to go boxes! No lie. The homeless of Chicago really appreciated us that night! The picture of this pie really doesn't do it justice. That pan is around 2.5-3 inches thick. Pizza Uno piles the cheese, toppings, and sauce on thick, and I mean thick! I ate all that I could (2 pieces) and was stuffed. Talk about feeding starving people, this pizza could feed a family of 6 easily.

Wednesday was not my favorite day. We spent most of the day shopping and walking and vice versa. We visited the Magnificent Mile and the Navy Pier. I wasn't very impressed, but Jenny would have loved it! I did get a pretty cool picture of the replica ferris wheel from the World Fair Expo with the sky line in the back. That night we went to Medieval Times dinner theater which was fun. The kids really enjoyed it.

Thursday was a fun day. We got to spend several hours in the Field Museum. It was really a good experience. One thing that I did notice at the museum was that there was a heavy emphasis on evolutionary thought. I mean, if that floats your boat then that's fine, but I assumed that the people at the museum would be free thinkers and not just go with the norm. I was wrong. And we also got to see the Cubs extend their win streak to 6. Of all the things that we did, I think that I enjoyed the seeing the Cubs play at Wrigley was the best!
One last thing...We did not have to take out a paper map one time during this trip! I downloaded Google Maps for my Blackberry and it worked wonderfully! I mean, All I had to do was search for the place that we were going and it gave me turn by turn directions and a map to go along with it. This was a life saver...especially during rush hour on Wednesday, but that is another post for another day!