Friday night had some scallops for dinner, and some asparagus soup, all by Tracy. Ended up watching most of Superbad, since it was on. Saturday, Tracy worked, and I watched some TV (most of Ratatouille and Redbelt). I also vacuumed a bunch, and finally took some photos of our place for my brother to see. After Tracy got home, we jetted up to E-Town to see the Gavin, and the Russells, and Marla. Tony showed up as well. Gavin's a cute little guy. And I continue to be slightly awkward with babies. Got dinner at Buffalo Joe's, which was a little disappointing. Not quite as good as I remember it. Sunday, Tracy wasn't working, but it was snowing, so I ended up staying in until mass at 4:30. I did manage to make grits and bacon successfully. And a couple loads of laundry, and watched a bunch of stuff, August Rush, the rest of Daredevil, Flight of the Concords, the start of Face/Off, and most of Knocked Up with dinner of pork and homemade pasta, which was chewy. Definitely have a lot of trial and error to do to get the pasta in a good spot.

I've changed my commute a little. Still walking to Belmont in the mornings, and walking home from Belmont in the evenings, but now I've taken to standing at the south end of the platform in the mornings, and taking the first, Purple Line or Brown Line that shows up. Before I'd be on the north end and wait for a Brown Line. If it's Purple, I end up getting off at Merchandise Mart and walking, otherwise, just at Washington/Wells. On the way home, I'm waiting for the northbound Purple at Washington/Wells. So that means I ride the Purple a lot more than before. And the thing I've noticed? More people talking on cell phones on the Purple. Like at least 1 every trip. Last night Tracy made her Italian eggplant dish, which was good. I had a Negroni with dinner. Also before dinner played some Wii Sports. Did a little Skypeing with Gabe, Sania and Ella. It's no iChat, but it works. I stopped by the old place to pick up mail as well, and picked some groceries up. I'm planning on making sandwiches for lunch this week, and seeing how that holds up.

Played Wii Sports last night, and if possible, I'm getting worse. I lost my pro rating in bowling, and almost lost in tennis to an opponent I had 400 skill points on. Also did some home exercising. Good times. Watched The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, after Tracy watched NPH on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and a little bit of Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live while I prepared our taxes. That took a while. But finally got that squared away and mailed off this morning. Also found out that Paul Rudd and Jason Segel attended a screening of I Love You, Man at the Brew & View at The Vic last night. Heard it was a good time. And it's in my neighborhood. Maybe next time. Oh, got tickets to Watchmen (movie) for Saturday at 12:40pm at the Muvico Rosemont 18. Yay for reserved seating.

Completely lost track of time yesterday. Figures. Wednesday night made some pasta dough for some ravioli for Tracy's mushroom and pork filling. Turned out better, no egg this time. I think I need to start the dough wet and then dry it out with flour, instead of the other way around. Also, I'm still not sure of proportions yet. I finished The Twenty-One Balloons on the way home that day. Quick read, but still intriguing. Watched House after playing some more Wii Sports. Yesterday tried out Starbucks VIA instant coffee since I had a free sample from earlier in the week. It's not bad. Did some Urbanathlon exercises before having a gyro special for dinner. Tracy had to work last night, so I was on my own for dinner. Got to go see Watchmen (movie) tomorrow and probably some shopping as well. And the weather's awfully nice. Wonder when the next snowfall will happen though. Should have a couple more left before summer shows up.

Let's see, Friday night stayed in, as usual. Played some Wii Sports, watched Sydney White and some Dollhouse. Saturday trekked out to Muvico Rosemont 18 with Tracy and Russell to watch the Watchmen. I really do like that theater, but we need to bring a footstool for Tracy. Dropped by Old Orchard, then home to make some noodles for a stir fry. Sunday was a lazy day in, the whole weekend was with all the rain, but with no leaking anywhere, so that's good. But watched Dodgeball, The Family Man, took a trip down to Fleet Feet and ended up at Fireplace Inn for dinner. Oh, picked up my Keen Bandon Boot WP from erehwon in the morning as well, and made waffles for brunch. And Monday, went for my first run since I think last November, since I'm running a 5K this coming Sunday. Figured I should get my first run in before then, but I probably could have pulled it off without a problem. Actually felt kind of good to get out and running again. Just need to try and keep it up. Watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Doing some web development for work, been a while since I've done that, but having a virtual machine to test old web browsers for compatibility is pretty convenient. Makes it super easy.

Wow, didn't even realized I didn't update yesterday. Weird. Tuesday Tracy had a flat tire in the morning, which she realized about 2 blocks away, so she came back, and I changed it out for her. I think I've changed a spare tire one other time in my life? But it was pretty easy and straightforward. She got it replaced after work, so that's good. Probably due to all the giant potholes around Chicago right now. She brought me back a burger from Steak n' Shake, which was surprisingly fabulous. I don't remember their burgers being that good. Had the leftover ribs as well. Played some Wii Sports, lost my pro status in bowling again. I still can't do a fast serve in tennis. Just don't have the timing. Watched and caught up with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles finally, and The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother. Now we've just got 6 or so episodes of Heroes to plow through. Finished Soon I Will Be Invincible, which immediately vaults to the top of my favorite book list. I really liked it. I'm hoping it'll hold up to repeat readings, like my other favorites. Next up: Snow Crash.

So I tried using Safari 4 on Windows at work, but it just didn't cut it. Back got Chrome. And it's so much better. Maybe after Safari comes out of beta, it'll be better. Didn't do any sort of exercising last night. Tracy made enchiladas for dinner, watched House, Castle and The New Adventures of Old Christine. I was still a little sore from the first run of the year on Monday night, so I extended my recovery period. I should be good to go for some Urbanathlon exercises tonight. I also think I'm going back to taking the Brown Line home, as waiting for a Purple Line at Washington/Wells can just get annoying. Last night watched 4 Browns go by, skipped the first Purple because it was packed, then got a seat on the next purple that went by. Annoying.

So my switch back to the Brown Line for the trip home? Last night I get up to the Brown side of Washington/Wells just in time to see a fairly empty Purple Line roll up and away. Awesome. Played a little Wii Sports, no exercise, again. Watched Bones with dinner (Tracy made steak and haricot vert and a salad). Not necessarily the best show to watch while eating steak. Got in an episode of Grey's Anatomy and The Office before bed. I started transcoding Friends, finally. Takes roughly 40 minutes an episode, and around 240 episodes, which means it should be done next Thursday around 3pm. That's awesome. Got the St. Paddy's Day 5K Run/Walk & Leprechaun Leap to run on Sunday morning, have to pick up the race packets tomorrow at Running Away. Most likely means I'll get my bike back up and running as that's the easiest way for me to get over there. And it's a pretty good excuse. Tracy's planning on corned beef and cabbage for Saturday night so we can have corned beef hash for brunch after the race on Sunday. That'll be sweet.

I think Tracy brought it up that St. Patrick's Day isn't really until tomorrow, but everyone celebrates it over the weekend. Because people really can't get that drunk on a weekday. Also noticed on Saturday that bars in Boystown were fairly quiet, while the ones in Lincoln Park were busy. Noticed this after I got my bike back in running order so I could pick up race packets at Running Away Multisport on Saturday. So, I'm back to biking. It's good, if slow, to be back out there. Nice and relaxing. Friday night cooked up some rainbow trout Tracy brought back from the grocery store. Saturday had a haircut, then worked on the bike. Snuck in a viewing of Eurotrip. Tracy made corned beef and cabbage for dinner. Sunday did the St. Paddy's Day 5K Run/Walk & Leprechaun Leap. First time for use to use the timing chips, so we'll actually see how fast or slow we went. Went out for some odds and ends on Sunday afternoon: got a thrift store bookshelf for a garden bed on the roof, checked out an open house at the old place, then went down to Fleet Feet to look around. Got a pastry at Twisted Sister Bakery. Had corned beef hash for dinner, and watched some TV. And I biked in to work this morning. So I'm back to biking, which means not as much reading.

Crazy. It's warm in the office. All I had that was green was a sweater. Not a good choice. Also not necessarily looking forward to the ride home, because I'm sure it's gonna be windy. The 30 degree drop tomorrow should be nice too. I got to make dinner last night, lemon chicken. That was nice. Watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Flight of the Concords. Oh, paid a little attention to the Apple event today, the iPhone OS 3.0 Software (March 17, 2009). The accessories integration is going to be impressive. Otherwise, not sure how the other things will affect my usage. Not looking forward to MMS at all. Copy & Paste, I don't miss it now. Well, maybe occasionally. I am looking forward to Notes syncing. Which means I might actually start using Notes again. If it could sync with MobileMe that would be awesome, but I don't think that's happening. Maybe push notifications. I wonder if I can talk work into trying it out. You know, instead of emails. System monitoring. Hmmm. But that's all I'm looking forward to when it gets released this summer, in September. But it should be reason enough to upgrade, since a few of the features won't work on the original 2G iPhone. So when new hardware gets released in June, Tracy and I can get a matching set.

And it's back to feeling like March again. Went out for dinner last night to Halsted's Bar and Grill. Nice because I didn't have to do dishes then. Before that watched Good Eats episode about frying. Maybe I should try that some weekend Tracy's working. All in all a quiet night. I did have a beer on the deck when I got home, since it was warm enough. It was nice. Tried to figure out where I need to put extra Airport Expresses to get good coverage on the roof deck. Also think it might be time to order up the whole house amplifier so we can get music up top. And I think I'm getting my bike legs back. Going a little bit faster now.

Having some issues with Comcast cable TV. Starting last night, since we didn't have any problems watching on Tuesday night, there were digital artifacts in the signal, blocking and audio breakups. So I rebooted the DVR, thinking that maybe it was because we have episodes of Heroes from last fall on there. But no, the problem didn't go away. I then checked on the TV in the bedroom, since that's plugged directly without a cable box, and the same problem there. At some point I go down and check the cable where it enters the building. Nothing loose, but part of the cable was tucked under the pipe leading to the electricity meters. So maybe that was causing the signal degradation. No change. Also, the DVR guide has been slow to repopulate. It was annoying enough that I started calculating how much it would cost to purchase all the shows we watch from iTunes Store, and it actually comes out to being cheaper than what we're paying for cable. Except that not all shows are available via iTunes, or actually, available online at all, specifically The New Adventures of Old Christine and The Big Bang Theory. It's pretty tempting. I'm waiting until tonight to see if the problem is still ongoing, and then probably scheduling a service call via Live Chat if it is. Tracy made Golabkis for dinner last night, we watched a couple old episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and The Big Bang Theory off the DVR, and I watched Castle, which I'm liking.

So Comcast is back to working perfectly. No idea what happened, or if someone else on the block complained, or what. But it's back to working. So that's good. Ended up watching How I Met Your Mother on Apple TV instead, since Thursdays are busy nights for the DVR. The ride home was a little tough, windy and cold. But doable. The only thing I might need for cooler weather commutes is some sort of windstopper pant, or legwarmers. But since it's spring, I shouldn't need any of that stuff anyway. Tracy and I both made stuffed peppers for dinner. Watched House. I did get excited about HD movies available for purchase from the iTunes Store, except there's nothing I actually want to buy in HD yet. Hopefully soon. Specifically Speed Racer and Wanted. And the Pixar movies. I'm on my own for dinner tonight, since Tracy's headed out to her parents since they're back from the Philippines and so she doesn't have to deal with Friday traffic back into the city. I'm planning on dropping by Sai Cafe for dinner, whether to eat there or carry out I haven't decided. Otherwise, maybe some shopping this weekend, a long bike ride, and some cleaning. Nothing too exciting.

We definitely did our part to help stimulate the economy this past weekend. Spent most of Saturday at REI in Oak Brook after going to Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora. Picked up a couple things, nothing too interesting until we got to REI. Spent like 2-3 hours there, Tracy was looking for some hiking shoes, which I need to find as well, cause we're thinking of going to Starved Rock State Park soon for a couple days. Also hiking or at least trail walking might be something we'd be interested in. But on the way out, we saw a K2 T:Nine Whirlwind women's bike for more that 50% off, but it was dark, so she couldn't take it out for a spin, so we had to come back on Sunday, first thing in the morning. Did some test loops in the parking lot, and shifting if definitely something to get used to, after only having an internal hub to worry about. But good thing we showed up early, since someone else was there to get it, but we got the only one. Went for a bike ride when we got home, and she's a whole lot faster than I am, and makes me want to get a new bike, with gears and chains and stuff. Although, if I remember correctly, if I take all the commuter stuff, rack, fenders, off my bike it's much more nimble. Oh, and also got some plane tickets for Ella's baptism in June. Grilled for the first time last night. Sai was amazing on Friday night, and biking home is hard with a belly full of sushi and beer and a headwind. Otherwise, some laundry, dinner at Mon Ami Gabi on Saturday night, watched some TV.

So, I had ordered up the whole house amplifier, since it's spring, and we'll need to be able to pump music up to the roof. But, no one was home to take the delivery yesterday. So I just shifted the address over to the old place, which has a receiving room. I guess I'll just send stuff that-a-way from now on. Just easier and safer to deal with. I do like how I was able to do that via the InfoNotice UPS number. Very slick. Of course, now I have to haul stuff from the old place back to the new place and up 4 flights of stairs. Did a couple more loads of laundry last night. Still got to fold it all though. Watched some season 4 of How I Met Your Mother, which I got a season pass for, then Bones, The Office, and 30 Rock with and after dinner. I'm trying to get the metainfo for Alias squared away before tackling Friends, but it's annoying because some of the episodes were out of order. And I'm on Season 4 when I noticed, so I have to go back to the first 3 seasons and double check. It's hard scrubbing through an episode to try and match up the description with the action.

So yesterday there was a forecast of bad weather. I contemplated not riding in to work. But, no rain, and didn't seem that windy, I figured if it's ok on the way in, it doesn't matter how bad it is on the way out, since I'm coming home, so I biked in anyway, despite the 90% precipitation and 40 mph gust forecast. Did I get either of that on the way to or from work? Nope. Actually, it ended up being one of my most pleasant commutes since I started again last week. Still waiting for a spring snowfall though. I added an exercise to my Urbanathlon routine, using an elastic cord exercise device as boxing resistance. That's a tough workout. Got in touch with my parents and made plans to see them this weekend while Tracy's working. Besides seeing them, I also have to do some tech support, especially reestablish remote desktop access so I can do support from home.

So Tracy's been using the Google Calendar part of Google Apps for scheduling and stuff. She's shared all her calendars with me, so I can see all of them. It's nice. However, I use an Apple centric infostore, MobileMe, iCal, iPhone. I have a lifetime subscription to SpanningSync back when MobileMe wasn't around. So I got around to trying it out again. And it's like magic. SpanningSync is syncing up my iCal calendars with my Google Calendars once an hour on my Mac mini. I added a couple things via Google Calendar this morning. I got around to checking my iPhone, and presto, there the appointments were. So it went from Google to Spanning Sync to iCal on Mac mini to MobileMe to iPhone. Convoluted, and probably prone to failure, but still pretty cool. Now to see if it goes back the other way. Had a meeting with Jason last night. Need to branch out to some tax advantaged investments. Leftovers for dinner, and watched Grey's Anatomy. Also, the battery on the MacBook lasts about 10 minutes now. And the 802.11n networking is having issues. 802.11b/g seems ok though. So a new laptop may be in the works for sooner rather than later.

More economic stimulation last night. Stopped by erehwon on the way home, picked up some hiking shoes Keen Targahee II, some replacement sunglasses Smith Factors, and some socks and inserts and a water bottle. Yay. I also sent off my Smith Toaster Sliders back to the factory, hopefully to get repaired or replaced, but we'll wait and see. If so, Tracy will have a pair to use for biking. After spending money with Russell, ended up going out to dinner at Las Mananitas for dinner (no meat was defrosted). That was good and easy. And we're running out of space on the DVR. Volume IV of Heroes is just waiting to get started. And with Samantha Who? back and In the Motherhood starting, Thursday nights 7-8pm has 3 parallel blocks for recording, which means Bones, Smallville or the aforementioned shows have to get skipped. And I don't get to record a couple new shows, like Castle and Cupid 2.0 and Better Off Ted. Oh well. It's not like I need more TV to watch.

I can't wait until Chrome comes out for Mac OS X. I just had a whole entry typed up but hit the keyboard shortcut for Search Snapback instead of submit in Safari. If I had Chrome, I could have just hit back, and my entry would still be there. Ugh. Retyping. Busy weekend. Sai Cafe on Friday night with Akira in partial repayment for Amazon Associates linkage. Good catching up. Saturday did some cleaning before heading out to Woodstock the long way via Brown Line and Metra in order to get a seat. Got some Burger King with mom for lunch. Mass and dinner at Bistro Wasabi, which meant sushi two nights in a row, and actually the restaurant participated in Earth Hour. Did some tech support for Ate Joy before settling in for a long night of dealing with SyncServices under my dad's account on the Library iMac. Airport Express that was used for a b/g network for the Kitchen iMac had a failed power supply, so I'll try and hack that back to working order for myself, and in the meantime set up the Time Capsule for as a slower n/b/g network. The TC also does a lot of rebooting, it seems under heavy loads. Tried to get Time Machine backing up, and it's working on the kitchen iMac but not the library one. But at least they're back up to speed. Sunday had family breakfast before heading back in via Metra and Brown Line. Tracy made chicken marsala for dinner and I made pasta again. I think I'm getting better, except for the cooking part. Always seem to overcook it. Watched Dollhouse, The Office, and 30 Rock.