Party season is ramping up. Blainflix post party just this past weekend. Booze and Candy tasting next weekend. Halloween x 2. Friendsgiving. Solstice. Figure I'll make a Milk Bar Apple Pie Cake (one of the few left I haven't made yet from the cookbooks) for one of the parties we're hosting. Speaking of apple, went to Lincoln Square Apple Fest last Sunday. Jackson's been dealing with injuries, so he had to skip his soccer game last Saturday. But being an 8 year old kid, he bounced back to normal a couple days later. Taking a break from paring down the whiskey collection. Made a good dent the last month or so. Already got my October bottle, and have to start thinking what my November bottle might be. Keeping up with the exercising, not so much with the diet though. Have to get back on that horse. Still stuck on V3s at Movement Wrigleyville. Not all, but still some. And I don't feel comfortable enough trying the easy V4s if there's still V3s I can't do. I can't dyno anything. And my grip strength is still pretty poor. Maybe need to up my session times. Finally finished off Stranger Things with the family, and Cowboy Bebop (original anime). Still working through Star Wars Rebels. Started up Blue Mountain State for fun. Hard to believe Thad becomes Reacher. Also would be interested in seeing something action/adventurery in a sitcom format, but I can't think of anything. Also watched a bunch of movies that are getting sequels, like Constantine and Avatar, Rogue One because of Andor. I did also plow through Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. I actually didn't think it was that good, thought it was pretty straightforward? But still, a fun world to watch. Also made it through Terminal List. Finally watched some blockbusters, like Jurassic World Dominion and The Gray Man. Also stuff like Hustle and Lou. So been watching a lot of stuff.

Starting to lose interest in cocktails. Cancelled my Cocktail Courier and Shaker & Spoon subscriptions. Started feeling like a bit of a chore to do all that drinking. Also, feels like homework trying to decrease the size of my whiskey collection, a bottle at a time. Can't remember the last Milk Bar style cake I baked. Can't remember the last time I baked anything. Did just plough through Silicon Valley. Makes me glad I never tried to do the startup thing. Finally watched Predator: Prey. Quite enjoyable. And could totally see how they could just run the concept back in various historical periods. English knights, Japanese samurai, Aztecs, Aborigines, Mongol Horde, Sparta, gladiators, Wild West, Vikings. Although you wonder how different any of those would be, but then again, how different should they be? Kids are back at school. Jackson's walking home by himself. Not quite walking himself to school yet, but hopefully soon. Lucy's taking the bus to/from LTAC by herself (with friends). So she's riding the bus way more than I did. I feel bad for her though because she's got to use a school issued chromebook. The resolution is so bad, so 3 years ago. It's rough on eyes. I definitely couldn't go back to such a "normal" resolution. Finally doing something about the cooling in the data center. Adding a ventilation fan to the crawlspace. Hoping it helps a bunch. Just need to cut a 6" hole in the wall. Back to Apple Fitness+ core workouts, I had taken a little break. Haven't been back to climbing in a couple weeks. Think I strained something in my forearm, so trying to let that get better before heading back. I guess I should start doing V4's now, but I'm not comfortable on every V3 yet, and there's still definitely some I haven't gotten. Tracy and Lucy are almost caught up in Stranger Things, so we'll watch S4 together.

Blog Birthday post. 24 years old. Crazy. Feels like only yesterday I was amazed that it was old enough to vote. This blog has definitely seems some wild times over the years. Anyway, trying to finish off Star Wars: Rebels. Just trying to finish it off, not getting too much enjoyment out of it. Not all that invested. Finally finished off Obi-Wan Kenobi. That felt like a useless series. Saw the trailer for Andor. Now that looks good. Did 2 sessions at Movement Wrigleyville this week. Feeling pretty good. Think I'm a pretty solid V3. My crimps aren't strong enough though. Work from home setup is pretty sweet. Using daylight LED bulbs and bias lighting behind my monitor. Getting too much noise from the data center fans and stuff. Need better cooling so I can close the door. Oh, got a couple more Outlier New Way Shorts in a light blue and a maroon. Love those things. They've got a little plastic piece for the drawstrings, so you don't have to tie them anymore. Strange.

Seriously, 3 whole months without an update? Whoops. Completely spaced on updating here. So Lucy ended up catching COVID on May 8th. Jackson continually tested negative. So far he's still hasn't had a positive test. Finished up watching The Expanse. Pretty good, but sad they didn't get to finish out the book series. Granted it gets pretty out there towards the end. Was pretty good on keeping up with sessions at Movement Wrigleyville up until the trip to Ireland. Then really haven't been for a month, then went back and got a couple flappers (calluses peeled off) on my left hand, so haven't gone back yet. Almost feels like my calluses are all gone. But I was consistently doing V3's before I stopped. So had been making progress. Played Ultimate for the first time in a very long time at the Old vs. Young game at Northwestern. Tracy and the kids came up to watch. Tun and I were the oldest by far. Next youngest was from 2012. Young team looks like atheletes, all tall and stuff. Definitely nothing like the team I played with. Young actually held their own, didn't get blown out. I actually did ok. Actually got a D. Go figure. Didn't hurt myself (no tears or sprains). Right knee swelled up something fierce though. Icing brought it down, but thought it was something worse. It wasn't. Jackson had club soccer tryouts for Northwinds and Chicago City Soccer. Ended up on Premier 3 (which is what he was supposed to be on last year, but I'm guessing got moved up because they didn't have enough to have Premier 2 and 3 last year. But this year, they've got enough. Three of his P2 teammates this year also are moving down. Funny though that Hudson tried out and made P2 this year. So they don't get to play together. Kind of sucks, but after talking to Coach Ahmad, Jackson's got to work on his ball skills. Got a Solo Store Bonfire to replace the fire table in the backyard that was rusting out. It's pretty amazing. Only got to use it a couple of times before it got pretty much too hot to use. Hopefully it gets lots of use this fall. The heat deflector works pretty well. Went camping again over Memorial Day weekend at Buckhorn State Park. DIdn't go up until Saturday, had to get the ranger over to clear out some kids stuff who had setup at our site. Took a while. Chris and Elliot came up and camped with us. Pretty fun. Jackson didn't get a mosquito bite until the last day. Watched Moon Knight. Blainapalooza was fun. Especially because Jackson went off with this friends, and I got to spend time with adults the whole time. Also managed to get rid of a the tiny bottles of Fireball. Found a new favorite cocktail from Cocktail Courier, Five Points Pavilion. Learned how to fat wash liquor (coconut tequila). Watched Severence. Watch that one. Watched The Good Place (some time jumping since Lucy was also watching it and started ahead of me). Kids made it to the end of school. Johnson's organized a beach party on the last day of school. That was fun. Went to Ireland for a week with the Cases. Galway was awesome. Castles are fun to stay in. Company was great. Drank some Guinness and the entire lineup of Spot Whiskey, as well as a Redbreast 21. That's some good stuff. Snuck in to take photos of the Trinity Library. Also checked out the Jameson distillery. But otherwise not that impressed with Dublin, except for Meaghers. Kids stayed with my parents. Went to South Haven, MI for 4th of July weekend where Kelley and Dave and Hudson were for the week. Lucy's been doing Junior Lifeguard Camp at Montrose Beach. Jackson's so far done a Northwinds soccer camp full day for a week, a basketball camp with Hudson for for half days for a week, and just finished up another camp with Hudson at Lakeshore Sport & Fitness full day for a week. He's only got one more P2 Soccer Camp full day with Hudson in a couple weeks, but that's been a lot. Had to drive and drop Lucy off at Nike Swim Camp at Hillsdale College and pick up her and Charlotte later that week when it ended. Did some bourbon hunting while in Michigan because Mythology doesn't distribute in Illinois. Only took an extra hour to get home after dropping Lucy off. Actually made it into the office for the 2nd time since COVID started. It was really nice. Convinced me to get a real work from home space. Tried moving up the 3rd floor, but wasn't good enough. Ended up ordering a real desk and chair from Fully and outfitted what was the LEGO nook to my office now. Today ended up being the first day I worked out of there. Watched The Boys S3. Pretty crazy. So yeah, that's the last 3 months.