Soaked through and through on the ride home yesterday. But fun. Nice and quiet, since no one else was riding. But had both front and back lights blinking, had my nice yellow rain coat, so I assume I was pretty visible. I should probably look into some anti-fog stuff for my clear lenses in my sunglasses. Or maybe some water repellent stuff. Seems like a tough trade off, getting pelted in the eye with rain and have trouble seeing, or get glasses covered with water and have trouble seeing. Pick 'em I guess. Watched some football last night. Tracy made stew with our smoked brisket attempt. Also, the hard drive died in the MacBook. Good thing I had a spare hanging around. Bad thing it was only the hard drive. I was kind of hoping to get a new laptop out of the deal. But I do get to try my hand at restoring from a Time Machine backup. Should be fun this weekend. Decided not to ride in this morning. Felt like reading instead. Gonna go see Red Bull Flugtag Chicago tomorrow. Think there's a Restoration Hardware fall sale going on as well. CHC happens this weekend too.

Bike ride in this morning wasn't wet at all. I guess I caught a lull. And it was much faster than usual, not sure why, but it was nice. I'm guessing I'll get caught in more rain on the way home. But looking forward to it. This is why I commute with fenders and sandals, strictly for the rain. More leftovers for dinner last night, hamburgers this time. Tracy did some shopping at Target so she wouldn't get caught in Cubs traffic so I watched Mad Men before she got home. Then we watched season premiere of Bones. And while getting ready for bed we started Pretty Woman.

I've been using Google Chrome at work, and I'm a big fan. It's fast. Like really fast. And does everything that I was using Firefox for. So waiting on the Mac version, which would probably mean I'd switch from Safari. Weather's a whole lot cooler, and probably a whole lot wetter in the next couple of days. Should make biking a little interesting. Leftovers for dinner last night. Finished up watching Sleepless in Seattle while folding laundry. Currently ripping The Office, and finished up How I Met Your Mother, and then need to start transcoding. Hoping the Mac mini will hold up. I'm actually thinking it might be a bad stick of RAM. Don't want to take it apart to find out though. I am using it to sync my iPhone these days though. Which is good, since the MacBook seems to be on its last legs. Hoping to make 2 years with it. Made our first mortgage payment. Online of course. Auto pay. Like everything else.

Friday night watched Dan in Real Life, one of my new favorite movies of the year, even if it was from 2007. Watched that on the DVR over a beef stir fry Tracy made for dinner. Saturday she went to work, I got my haircut, then headed out to Woodstock to visit with my parents. Got to do some big box suburban shopping, where large quantities of things are much much cheaper than the city. Also got to hit up dinner at Bistro Wasabi, where I could have gotten my sushi fix, but didn't because I chose poorly on the menu. Should probably just stick to straight up sushi. Did get some Dairy Queen though. Did some computer updating, got my parents on MobileMe, even though they'll probably never know or notice. Was going to steal the old Airport Express but they still need it. So I either need to replace it with a true Airport Extreme Base Station, or just bit the bullet and get some new/old ones. I'm really getting tempted to set up a b/g only and an n only networks to better support the laptops and AirTunes. Sunday headed back in to the city, more shopping, some prep work for the BBQ on Monday, which Tracy did the most of. Monday BBQ, more grilling, another failed attempt at smoking a brisket, and family. Ended up watching a little bit of Sleepless in Seattle.