So, there's this The 2012 NATO Summit thing going on this weekend. Work was nice enough to let people work from home and close the office Friday, Monday and Tuesday. So far we haven't seen anything, well, I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary at all. As far as I can tell, nothing's different, on the west side just outside the Loop. Biking's been easy. Had some back creaking from the bottom bracket again, had to take it out and grease it up again. But fairly quite now. Think I need my wheels trued though. Had 1 loose spoke, which probably means bad things. Hanging the bike from the ceiling probably doesn't help matters much either. Lucy's good, seems to be talking more. A few phrases here and there. Took a bath in the big tub last night. I think she liked it. Tracy also took her to check out her new daycare, and I guess she liked it, enough that she didn't want to leave after her visit. Hopefully that's good, since she starts in less than 2 weeks. Scary. After my 5 book binge last week, trying to start Blueprints of the Afterlife, but I can't seem to get into it. Maybe I need to be on the beach. But with a backlog of TV to watch, just haven't been reading in the evenings, and with biking, no reading on the commute. Just got to make the time.

A real vacation. Just got back from a real vacation. Days spent on the beach or by the pool. One afternoon went kayaking in the lagoon. Otherwise, perfect. Made it through 5 books. Forgot to mention I got a Kindle 4 before leaving, since I needed something for beach/pool reading, and I just went with the cheapest version. And it's awesome. Except for the whole special format and converting of epubs, it's great. Light, pretty easy to use, and now a couple days back I'd almost rather use it than the iPhone 4S or iPad. Crazy. But totally came in handy. Kinda carried it around everything. Had a man purse anyway with camera. Resort only had Wi-Fi in the lobby, but it was free. So very sporadic email checking. That was quite nice. Never VPN/RDP'd for work. That was cool. Didn't try FaceTime either, timing didn't work out well. Lucy had too much fun with Grandma and Grampa anyway. Dad sent me photos of her working in the yard, almost made us want to come back sooner. Great to see Lisa and Ryan too. Only problem, Tracy got sick (as in Cold or Flu), and I picked it up too. So strange to have a cough, but I guess a good vacation since there was so much lounging about. Travel was fine. Didn't do that much drinking. Food was ok. But still, reading all day, the occasional dip in the ocean and pool? Awesome. Nice to be back though. Really good to see Lucy. I missed her.

So, 26th post for 2012 and it's already May. That's why I numbered posts this year, to see just how bad I am at updating this thing. Biking to work has been good. Fun even. Last week though got caught in the rain 3 days in a row on the way home. Not bad, just annoying after a while. Today ran out for some Crisp, there and back in about 30 minutes, including ordering and waiting for the food. Super easy to just pop it on the cetma rack. I love that thing. I mounted a couple Planet Bike Blaze 1W headlights to it, so now I'm rocking duals, although I won't really need them until the fall. Besides biking, had a 2nd birthday party for Lucy. Best present for her has been the fruit cutting and the cookware set from Auntie Amy. Kind of sad but good is that she hasn't been playing with her iPad as much. Now that I put Netflix on it, recently it's a way to watch Thomas the Train Engine. Yay! Yay? She's trying to count now too, but skipping the unimportant numbers like 4-7. And she likes playing hide and seek, except you can't hide too well, and she just runs away and comes back when it's her turn to hide. Gonna miss her since Tracy and I are going to Mexico for our anniversary with the Cases for their anniversary, all sans kids. So Lucy's spending the rest of the week out in Woodstock with Grandma and Grandpa. Looks like FaceTime works, so hopefully we'll get some 21st century parenting in. Picked up a pair of Native Nano2 sunglasses from Moosejaw. Hopefully I won't lose these for at least 3 years.

Finally biking again. Finally got my cetma rack installed. Got a rear quick release skewer, but that ended up being too big, then got the bright idea to just swap out front skewers with the xtracycle, which worked like a charm. So I'm rocking a front porteur style rack, took off the rear Wald folding metal baskets, but kept the Tubus Cargo, and bungie my Tom Bihn Ristretto to the front and strap my Arkel TailRider to the back and off I go to work. Works well. When I bring Lucy in the mornings I double fist it, BOB Revolution on the left, and the Sprint on the right, held and steered by the stem. Then I get to jet down the Lake Front Path. So much harder than cruising through the city, since it's non-stop. Like night and day. Makes me crave a real road bike. Oh well. Good exercise. Which is good. Since we're headed to Mexico in a couple of weeks. And the cheesecake my mom gave us for Easter, which I ended up eating, didn't help at all. Reread Ready Player One, still a fun read. Started up the Percy Jackson books again, partly because I watched the movie and also wanted some more fluff to read. Lost my sunglasses, which is annoying. Brought Lucy to Green City Market last Saturday, but parking was really bad, so got frustrated driving around, then she wanted to chase the ducks and geese, but I just wanted to get to the market to get some fiadone's from Zullo's, and ended up they weren't even there, and at some point I put my hood up over the sunglasses on my head, and at the end of the day, realized I no longer had them. That was a good 3 or so years for those, which is actually pretty good for me. So now have to get another pair. Probably another pair of Smiths. ANd probably shouldn't just buy them from Amazon, or at least, wait until I try them on somewhere.