First off, my uncle Tony, my mom's brother, passed away today in the Philippines. My mom was on the way there when it happened. He's in a better place now.

Ok, let's try this again. Last update was September, 3 1/2 months ago. So new house still under renovation/rehab/construction. House next door finished up and is for sale at $2.5 million. So we'll have rich neighbors. Speaking of new house, had to go and shovel the sidewalk out front for the first time today. Easy, since it's only a little section of sidewalk, but a pain up until we start living there, since I have to drive over (didn't feel like biking). And estimate is now finishing up in March or so. Hopefully. Work's work. Busy. Always. Interesting, always. Wife and kids are good. Jackson was sick for a month or so, went through 3-4 issues, cold, flu, stomach bug, but he's finally back up to speed. No snots even. Lucy's good, she also had a flu or something for a week or 2, but she got antibiotics to kick it. Christmas and New Year's was good. Thanksgiving too. All pretty low key, nothing big. Lucy like's to stay over at the grandparents condo during the school week. Helpful, but hopefully it's not because she doesn't want to come home, but that she likes staying at grandma's better. Been biking to work. Swapped out to Power Grips instead of toe clips so I can wear boots. And the Bar Mitts as usually have been great. The Revolights work well too, but installation was a bit of an issue, at least on the front wheel, because I had to trim those little fins off the brakes in order to prevent it from rubbing. Pretty annoying. In December I actually had to take off the Bar Mitts a couple of times because it was too warm. But with windchill's estimated down to -20 tomorrow, I'm going to pass on the biking, at least until I get some goggles, so I can not have any exposed skin. As of now that's the only part that gets cold on my rides. With Mom in the Philippines, I get to go back to taking a more active part in Lucy's school commute. Going to try and start writing here more. I've started journaling again, with Day One. I'm back to logging locations, this time via Path instead of Foursquare/Swarm. Going to try and go paperless at home, for reals this time. Got a Doxie One scanner and will use Hazel to process, as suggested via Tools and Toys. So maybe that'll prevent the mail buildup on the counter. Tried out using a work laptop, but ended up giving that back because I didn't know how to carry a full size laptop on my bike (I don't want to wear a backpack). Found out the newest DisplayLink drivers support up to 14 monitors, so I'm up to 10 at work. Got a Dell Chromebook 11 to check out Chrome OS and a Dell Venue 8 to check out Android. Neither are very usable for work stuff right now. Finally finished up How I Met Your Mother. I had been spoiled by a tweet or website so I knew what was coming, but Tracy had no idea and she got blindsided. I decided to start over from the beginning and see how long I make it. Plowed through Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., first season on Netflix and the second bought on iTunes, so I'm all caught up there. I watched the relevent movies at the appropriate times, so that was cool to see the interplay between TV and Film. Love the coherence. Finally finished the Magician's Series, reading the first two and finishing with The Magician's Land. Pretty good. Neatly tied up loose ends. Liked that. Also thoroughly enjoyed The Martian and hopefully the movie version will come out ok. Back to using the Zagg Cover Keyboard for iPad mini. Works better now that I use the Zagg Autofit 8 for the Dell Venue Pro 8 and they have the same key layout, so I'm getting used to the eccentricities.

Took the El to work and back. Ordering goggles now so I can bike in this weather. Had to leave early to pick up Lucy. Been a while since I"ve done that. And I get to bring her to school tomorrow. I needed to work from home anyway, since I've got to be at the house so the water dept can come in and check the new service and program the meter. Then I need to head in to work because I've got to move my stuff, since they're doing construction and I'm getting shuffled around. We also got a 90" TV installed at work, replacing a 4x55" video wall because the consumer grade equipment had too much of a bezel around individual TVs. New construction is bigger offices with actual doors for the president and CFO. Probably going to work from a laptop for the 3 weeks it's under construction. Should be interesting. Not looking forward to having to shovel some more snow tomorrow. Won't actually do it until I head over for the water dept guys. Saw that Sony's TV announcement at CES included all smart TV's running on Google Android. Smart for Google and Sony. Google extends their reach, Sony doesn't have to worry about the OS. Will there be an Apple TV? Things I have to start checking on for eventually outfitting the new house. Nice to see some HomeKit stuff getting announced. Not sure if that stuff will be ready by the time we move in.

Updated the home webserver to Yosemite a week or two ago. Also upgraded it to an SSD, which means all the machines at home are now solid state. Of course, that meant the websites were broken, so it wasn't until tonight that I had some time and fixed the issues. Besides just getting it up and running finally I fixed some more outstanding issues so musings navigation works again among other things. Of course my more ambitious plans of redoing the design hasn't happened yet, but we'll see. As always, big plans, high hopes... Last weekend went to Great Wolf Lodge for the 10 year reunion. Hard to believe. Fun, but completely different. Kids and smartphones were the 2 biggest differences I could easily think of. In comparison to the other water parks, Great Wolf was the warmest. Probably helps that it was made up of smaller spaces joined together, instead of the one giant space like Kalahari. Should probably try KeyLime Cove up in Gurnee to see if it's any good. Closer that's for sure. Also, the Olympus TG-3 waterproof camera worked out pretty well. Got some fairly impressive, at least to me, underwater shots of Lucy. Looking forward to using it when we go to Florida for Spring Break with the Cases. Finally got to use the sports goggles I got for bike commuting. Totally worth it. I also splurged and got a pair of softshell swrve winter pants. And they're amazing. I want more to just wear all the time. But all the winter biking gear is getting used. When I get fully dressed, no exposed skin. I went with Power Grips so I could use boots. I also finally got a pair of those bar end lights, so hopefully super easy to see me at night. Next might be a Torch T1 Helmet with built in lights. Maybe next week. House is coming along, and this is when things supposedly start to crawl, as we get to the nitty gritty stuff. I'm working on getting it setup as a smart home, so controlled including lights, shades, AV distribution, HVAC, security, all that jazz. Hardest thing for me is letting go of control. Because for the system to be done right, the integrator has to do it with a level of programming that the vendors don't allow customer access to. Which sucks. But if that's what it takes. Oh, got my Coin beta today. It's a lot cooler than I thought it would be. Seriously as thin as a credit card, which makes sense, but I just figured it'd be thicker because of the bluetooth radio, display, and so on. But no. It's also like the future. Used it without any issues at Whole Foods. Something to tide me over until I get an Apple Watch, which I most likely will.

Crazy. Another year closer to 40. Started sleep training Jackson. Which needed to be done. But weird, because he's never slept in the crib. He only was in the pack n' play, or in the bed. Hasn't tried climbing out yet, which I think he could do. Tends to lay on his belly, butt in the air, and tuck his arms in under him, and cry. We don't have the nets up so he lost his binkies last night, but maybe we can get them up so at least he can have them. They help I think. And, as usual, the question comes up if he threw up or not, like the first night, or if he pooped or not, and that's why he's crying, or if he doesn't like Lucy's room. So far, seems like it's because he doesn't like sleeping by himself. Contemplating whether or not I should try biking tomorrow, because it's supposed to be a high of like 9° F. I do bundle up correctly, but still, wonder when it's too much. Only exposed skin might be the underside of my nose, because the facemask doesn't cover it. Bike does need a good cleaning, but no idea when that's going to happen. Kind of cold for it.

Now that I'm not sleeping with Jackson anymore, I have my nights back. I'm sleeping less, watching TV more, and doing more work at home again. And that's just the first week. I wonder if I can start up some hobby projects finally. But I'd forgotten what watching live TV was like. Watched a couple episodes of The Walking Dead with Tracy last night. I've become rather enamoured with either purchased media or subscription media, because of the lack of ads and no need for fast forwarding and completeness of episodes (don't have to worry about missing that last minute or even 30 seconds of a next episode preview or after the credits scene). Randomly getting tempted by a real laptop again, like a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014). Max out the RAM, and go to town. Go to town over what, I'm not exactly sure. Or, I could buy this MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) from work instead. Maybe after the next round of updates? I would have to figure out a way as always to carry it on the bike, but then again, might give me a reason to get another Tom Bihn bag. Started using Slack at work. Mostly dev team, but I'm finally ramping up my usage. Using it to keep track of things instead of email, so sending notifications to it directly via SQL stored procedures via curl and the web post hooks to channels. Not bad. Better more direct notifications than email. Of which there's too much noise. Also, not sure if it was noticed, but Daily Dose doesn't have intro/main parts to a post. It's just the post. Figured there wasn't a need to split it anymore.

I can't believe I just took 2 weeks off from bike commuting. I thought it was only 1. Started up the 7 Minute Workout fad from 2013. It's hard for me. Going from nothing (well, bike riding) back to some sort of workout? Hard. Also, my joints hurt. Like I'm an old man. Might be why I took time off from biking. Also, Tracy set me straight on the false belief that you shouldn't bend your knees past 90 degrees when doing squats. That's a lie I've been living my entire life. So deep knee bends here I come. Jackson still hasn't quite caught on to the sleep training. It's been like a month. Not promising. Searching for day care options because our current provider will be undergoing renovations soon (Parents are fixing up their condo). Last week spent my Monday night/Tuesday morning redoing the networking patch panels at work. Took a lot longer than I thought, but so satisfying now that it's done. So pretty. So organized. So easy to work with now. Wish I could do something like that for my home networking, but don't think I get to. Someone else does.

I can't believe I just took 2 weeks off from bike commuting. Granted, I spent 1 week in Florida on vacation, and actually was on a bike down there, but still funny that was my last post. Yeah, went with the Cases to Anna Maria Island, south of Tampa, north of Sarasota. Fun, relaxing. Plenty of sleep because I had to sleep with Jackson since he was having none of the pack n' play that was provided. Lots of pool time which the kids loved. Some beach time, but pool was definitely more popular. Also, the Abando family got really tan. Lucy got the darkest of us all, which takes me back to when I was young and would darken like that. Lucy was kind of sick while we were there, and Jackson got sick on the last day and the following week, like me. So that postponed his first day at DayCare until Wednesday. But he did and is doing great there. Apparently he eats a lot, so either day care agrees with him or he's going through a growth spurt. I do have to remember not to walk down the alley, because his room faces into the alley, and he saw me last week once in the middle of the day. Also, looks like he's not lactose intolerant anymore, as he's taking real milk at school, and we have him on half formula and milk at home. Still craves the bottle in the morning and at night, but gets a sippy cup at daycare. Hope they see him when he's crazy happy, because it's pretty awesome. Although when he gets frustrated, watch out. He's still pretty clingy on me. But hopefully that'll ease up a little. Maybe next time my parents take Lucy for the weekend they can take Jackson too. Estimated completion on the house is now July/August timeframe. But that's ok, cause finally got our taxes done and we're getting a big refund supposedly. Got Jackson back to sleeping in the crib, which is good. I've got an extra couple of hours now at night. However, Lucy's sleeping in the living room, so can't use my computer, but that means Tracy and I get to sleep in the same bed. Got an Apple Watch try on appointment for this evening on my way home. Figured why not. Even if I won't be able to get one for a while. Also want to check out the new MacBook (Retina 12-inch, Early 2015), which I also won't be able to get, if at all, for a while. Starting to swing back to wanting/using a laptop again at home. Realizing add on keyboards for tablets don't cut it, especially when I keep using 8" Windows tables and the iPad mini. That new Surface 3 looks intriguing though, instead of the Dell Venue Pro 8 or ThinkPad 8 I use now. Again, all stuff I can't buy for a while.

Nuke and Pave social media time. Spending too much time reading Twitter and RSS. Just cleaned out both, except for people I actually know on Twitter. Didn't bother for RSS because I don't think anyone I really know actually have active feeds. Looks like the last time I tried that was 3 years ago. Have I mentioned I subscribed to HBO Now? Pretty cool. Working my way through Entourage, I forget where I left off with that. Using http://checktrakt.tobiasarends.com chckTrakt] with tract.tv (http://trakt.tv) to start tracking what I'm watching again. Hoping this doesn't go the way of Miso. Ostensibly, got it so Tracy could watch Game of Thrones sooner than a year after it airs. But I'm enjoying it. The iOS app is much nicer than the Apple TV one though. Gave blood last week, did a double red blood cell donation. When I was checking in they asked. I am a good candidate and figured why not, since I had the time. Not bad, and Tracy made me a steak for dinner to help replace the iron. So that'll be what I do going forward. Jackson's still doing well at day care. Weather's good enough that I'm taking the Xtracycle out again. Planning on getting a Hooptie soon. Not sure if I'll do Bike the Drive this year. Would have to do it with both kids since Tracy's working. Tempting, however difficult it might be.

Preshool over for Lucy. She had her pseudo graduation on Thursday, end of year school party on Friday. Starts Kindergarten in the Fall. Crazy. Jackson's chugging along at DayCare. Healthy now after going through a couple illnesses. Did Bike the Drive this year, a little cool, but pretty fun. The Hooptie is working well. Late start, so only went down to Grant Park and back. New Favorite Restaurant? Crosby's Kitchen in our new neighborhood. House has drywall. So that's cool. Getting closer. Took the week off from biking. Jackson's been getting up at 5:17am, so been tired. Put a Superdrive back in the iMac, simplified the desk a little, got an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 4-Bay Enclosure, so have a 6 TB RAID 5 DAS instead of the 2 separate external drives I was running before. Gave in and ordered an Apple Watch. Should show up in a couple weeks. Hoping I'll actually use iPhone/iPad less because of it. Definitely seems like that's the case for a lot of people. Getting tempted to try and remove processed/refined sugar from the diet for a month. Wondering what that would be like and how long I'd last. Oh, and I'm back to Twitter 31/RSS 35. That didn't take long. Getting tempted to nuke and pave the iOS devices. Been running Windows 10 on a couple Boot Camp computers, my iMac and a work MacBook Pro. Oh, switched to Boot Camp at home instead of Parallels, mostly because Lync, now Skype for Business, couldn't do audio well through virtualization. Plowed through Daredevil on Netflix in a week or so. That was good.

Lucy had a hand infection. 1 week later, 2 trips to the ER, 2 nights in the ER, 1 night in ID (Infections Diseases), 1 surgery to clean it out, a penrose drain, and she's back home, fever free, with a splint on her left hand. That's the short version. Last weekend we went out to Woodstock. Saturday Tracy noticed Lucy had some swollen fingers (part of middle finger toward the palm and up a little on the index finger and in the web). I thought she jammed her fingers. She wasn't really complaining. Sunday it was more red and swollen, my parents thought it was a bug bite. Then we went to Homer Glen and Lucy played with Caden and Connor, running around and everything, just one handed. Sunday night she woke up from the pain that it was hurting, so Tracy gave her some Ibu and brought her to the ER. They circled it and gave an antibiotic prescription. Follow up at at Town & Country on Tuesday. There they said back to the ER because it wasn't getting any better. So back to the ER, IV antibiotics, popped with some pus discharge, but still not getting better, fever developing, so Thursday morning surgery planned to clean it out. First scheduled for 3pm, then pushed to 6pm, then opening at 1:30pm or so. No complications. Finally got in to visit with my dad, saw Lucy in recovery. Hung out for a bit up in her room, waited for the Argaos to come. Got my butt kicked in Spot It, so Lucy's cognitive abilities weren't affected at all. Then discharge on Friday, So mostly worries from us about the hand infection, more from my dad, who knows that they can cause really bad damage to tendons and stuff. Lucy probably had some pain from the swelling, but that's mostly it. She's in pretty good spirits for spending most of the week in the hospital. Meanwhile, Jackson ran a fever so stayed home from daycare from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday. And whatever he had he gave it to me. So that's the last week in the Abando household.

Kids are all good and healthy, Tracy too, and family as well. Spent Saturday and Sunday out in Woodstock for my mom's birthday. Had good weather yesterday, ok weather today for the small get together with Ate Joy and Ate Carmi and families. So for June tried to cut out soda and glazed breakfast pastries and donuts. Only slipped a couple of times, but with everything else remaining constant, exercise level, bike commuting, other meals, it had no effect on my weight at all. So throwing that out the window, well, not completely, I'll cut down on it a little, but I'm not going to cut it out permanently. Gave in and got myself an Apple Watch and a MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015). Been wearing the watch since I got it, and already have 3 other bands, depending on mood and outfit. Probably won't stop at 4 total, but I've got a decent base for now. Yes, I'm slightly addicted to completing the circles. I have no issues when I bike to work and back, but I don't come close on the weekends. Kind of enjoying wearing a watch again. Haven't worn one since probably 7th grade Swatches. Before I switched to pocket watches. Phone definitely stays in the pocket more than before. And much easier to keep up with work email, when I can archive from my wrist. Just got the MacBook on Friday, and been failing to setup Boot Camp and either Windows 8 or Windows 10 Preview. Not sure if it's the USB Flash Drive, or something else. Getting used to the keyboard, and it really is like an iPad+keyboard case but it runs OS X. Didn't take too long to get it setup on the Mac side, and will have to try and get it setup for hobby development. The lack of MagSafe is noticeable, mostly because the USB-C plug is hard to remove. Looking forward to being able to go places when I work from home instead of getting stuck behind the iMac. Also, retina on the Mac is amazing. Nice to be standardized on it now, except for the iMac of course.

So I'm a podcast listener now. Took me a while to join that bandwagon, but it happened. Just started when I was working from home, and found I get more focused when listening to something. Also, Tracy started listening to NPR, so I felt a little left out. So now I listen to things. Current podcast subscription is a little tech heavy, even more so Apple tech heavy. Accidental Tech Podcast (http://atp.fm), Debug (http://www.imore.com/debug), iMore Show (http://www.imore.com/imore-show), Rocket (https://www.relay.fm/rocket), The Talk Show with John Gruber (http://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/), Turning This Car Around (http://turningthiscararound.com) and The Nerdist (http://nerdist.com/podcasts/). Have a couple more I'm trying out. Tried out Apple Music after updating yesterday. Interesting. Then I went back to my podcasts. Wondering if it'll replace Pandora for Tracy. Got Windows 10 installed on the MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015), turns out my issues were with the bad USB flash drive. Working well and love it being able to move around and work on the floor, couch, dining room table.

My iPhone 5S got wet on Saturday at Slide the City out in Algonquin. So I'm sans phone until tomorrow night, which was the soonest available Genius Bar slot at Lincoln Park Apple Store and I can use my last AppleCare+ accidental damage replacement. Weird. Current estimated move-in date is early October. Lucy did get registered at Blaine though. So that's good. Got Windows 10 official release installed on MacBook and iMac. Jackson switched to 2 days a week at Children's Learning Place with my parents watching him the other 3 days.

Al and Nicole and Luke visited this past week. Saw them in Woodstock last weekend, then took Wednesday and Thursday off to do some sightseeing, Maggie Daley Park and Buckingham Fountain on Wednesday, and Montrose Beach on Thursday. Montrose has great sand, but the water was really cold. Also took my first Uber from Buckingham Fountain. Super easy. Good to see them all. Luke and Lucy played well, and Jackson was apparently very funny to Luke, and they all ran around and got loud and stuff. Always nice to see cousins playing well. I'm back to having a working phone, and looking forward to ordering a new one this week after the rumored announcement at the Apple Event Hey Siri, give us a hint. (September 9, 2015). House is chugging along. Can definitely see the end. Starting to think about closet organizers. Went to the Blaine Kick Off Picnic, saw Tun for a bit but he was besieged by parents and students. Lucy's first day is Tuesday. Kindergarten. Crazy. After School programs don't start until the following week, so going to be interesting. Finished up Mr. Robot. Had watched the first 9 episodes via the USA Now app on iPad or Apple TV, but figured I'd end up rewetting it and it's a really good show. Also Tracy's been watching Playing House, also on USA, which is very entertaining. They look like they really enjoy it. Just saw that the final season of Continuum starts soon. So I'll have to start watching that too.

Got hit by a sudden flu bug which took me out for a day and a half. I was wondering why it was so hard riding my bike in to work yesterday morning, then I realized I wasn't feeling so well about midway through morning before calling it and riding back home and collapsing on the floor bed and sleeping until picking up the kids. Then sleeping a lot more. Of course, I'm up now, but that's usual. But feeling better. Figure I'll stay off the bike for at least tomorrow. Moves the needle on the decision to go on the North Shore Century on Sunday, already affected by the pullout of Russell. Think it'll move to a gameday decision. iOS 9 released, and I only got around to updating all the devices this evening. That's how out of it I was, didn't check Twitter or RSS much today. I did finally watch Avengers: Age of Ultron since I caught up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which did lead directly into the movie, although it didn't answer all the questions. Still have 3 more episodes from last season.

Did the North Shore Century yesterday. Actually did it. I think it's my third year, not in a row, but first time by myself. Figured why not. Took my time. Actually biked to Kenosha and back. Crazy. One of these years I'll have to do a long bike ride not in commuter mode: with handlebar and saddle bags, fenders and front rack. Maybe if I ever get a dedicated road or commuter bike, one or the other. Took the Red Line up to Howard, rode over to Dawes Park. Started around 7:30? Tried using the Apple Watch to track my workout. Didn't last the full 100 miles. Did use Strava to track the ride, which is how I found out it was around 8 hours of actual riding time. Left the phone in the handlebar bag plugged into an external battery for most of the ride. Made it back at 4pm. Then I tacked on an extra 7 miles or so to get home. So cross that off my list of things to do. Think I just want to figure out how to bike to Wodstock next. Also pretty sore. Going to take a week off biking or so. And towards the end was craving Papa John's because they didn't have pizza at the Highland Park rest stop. Also, I had to stop and take pictures/video of a playground by a school in Waukegan that was nothing but purple monkey bars, Lucy's favorite. Seriously, look a little like an American Ninja Warrior training ground.

Legs are mostly recovered from the 107 mile bike ride on Sunday. Quads are anyway. Starting to feel some tightness in the left achilles, which may or may not be related. Been watching Homeland, I think trying to binge before Season 5 starts. Because the previous 4 seasons supposedly expire from online streaming on October 7. McRib is in season, so need to get one of those today. Tried out the mobile ordering from Starbucks yesterday. Super easy. Just walk in and pick up. And complete customization available within the app. Got myself a double short pumpkin spice latte. And to be honest, trying to keep up my gold status with them. And just checked and I lost my gold status. I'm back to green. Also I started using a Dunkin Donuts card because I saw someone use their Apple Watch to pay once. And now I'm that guy paying for donuts with his watch. It's not Apple Pay, but still super convenient.

Website was down for a bit. Upgraded the web server to El Capitan, and had to wait for some free time to figure out the little things to get the sites back up and running. Still have to recompile php with mcrypt to get the kids sites back up. Also, still having a few issues on proxy issues, since the new Server.app now serves sites through a proxy. Tracy and I upgraded phones, she's on a rose gold iPhone 6S while I went big with the iPhone 6S Plus. Didn't take me long to get used to it, but now completely used to the size, to the point that the regular 6S looks normal, and when I had to do something on the old 5S it felt like a teeny tiny toy. But going big also means I'm trying consolidating, so no more iPad at this point. Think I'll be ok with only 1 device going forward. Back to El Cap, have everything but the main server upgraded. Been doing nuke and paves, and don't want to take the iTunes server down for any extended period of time. Just in case we have internet connectivity issues and still need to entertain the kids. But since the kids are going to my parents this weekend, as good a chance as any to upgrade. Besides that looking forward to sleeping in. Might try for the chance for free Stan's Donuts for life at their new LakeView store opening Saturday morning.

Ate too much on a kid free weekend. Went to Sable on Friday night. Good, but standard good. Gastropub fare, bone marrow, burrata caprese, beet salad, tartar, oysters, pork belly, fancy cocktails. Then went to Eataly for the first time. Pretty cool. Much more open than I imagined. Didn't actually eat anything myself because I was stuffed. Saturday was much better, Frontera Grill with Jason Trimble. Really good food, street food trio, ceviche, guacamole, and the duck mole, and apple/ground cherry tart. All really really good. And cocktails were good too. Can totally see why you have to make reservations months in advance for that place. It's that good. Sunday morning was Summer House for breakfast. Just ok, french toast, waffle, candied bacon and sausage. Very cool space though. No bloody mary. Just coffee. Too much rich food. Finally watched Pitch Perfect 2, which I thought was really well done and very enjoyable. Also watched Jurassic World, which I also thought was really well done as a great follow up to the first one. Just well done. Got the house server upgraded to El Capitan, and got a much higher resolution running on the MacBook, and cleaned off the desk a bit, and got the older iOS devices ready for Lucy. And slept in a bit. So fairly successful weekend. Even managed to do a little work on Saturday.

Got a standby jury notice a while back for today for the R. J. Daley Center for today. Put my PTO notice in. Called last night, and my last name falls between A-F inclusive. So I get a pseudo day off work and instead do my civic duty. Start time was 9:30, so I had time to get a donut from Do-Rite. Did some reading, podcast listening, then got and hour and a half for lunch. Got Burger King, wandered around the market. After lunch my panel got called, along with a couple more. I actually got to sit in the jury box this time, in the second group. Got asked and answered questions. But in the end not picked. Got my check and dismissed. Enough time to pick up some treats from Magnolia Bakery and design my closet at The Container Store. So back to work tomorrow.

Somehow managed to get the flu again. Slightly different than the last one, which was fairly recent, this time with a sore throat. Came on fast, Friday night. Full body ache seems to be over, but now have the head congestion. Got called out by Carter at work for a halloween costume. Might just reuse an old existing costume, not sure I can come up with something in a couple weeks or not. And can't play off the kids costumes, not much for adults in the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls world. Went to a birthday party out at the DuPage Children's Museum yesterday. Pretty entertaining place for the kids. Tracy and Lucy made Monkey Bread for breakfast. It was fabulous. I think it was relatively easy too. Been wanting to go to Stan's Donuts in their new LakeView location, but for some reason Jackson doesn't want to go in the early morning when we're up and no one else is. One of these days.

Been 2 weeks and I think I'm finally kicking this sickness to the curb. One of those mullets of a disease. Flu up front and a cold out back, which ended up being the long tail. But, fingers crossed, I'll feel well enough to start biking to work again. Of course because of Daylight Savings Time ending, I need to put my Gen 1 RevoLights back on the bike. I'm jealous of the the Indiegogo for the newest version, Eclipse. If only mine would break or something. Someday. I did manage to get warmmuffs for the kids so if/when we do go back out on the xtracycle they'll be prepared. Jackson's decided 4:45am is his wakeup, so that's mine too. Thinking I should shift my bedtime to mirror his, but 8pm is awfully early. At work I've gone from a 10x19" LCD setup to a laptop screen. Kinda nice, mostly because it's a widescreen. I did make it out to Stan's Donuts sometime in the past 2 weeks. It was very good, and I'll be back. I did dress up for Halloween at work. Brought out the Aladdin costume, the one from high school. Might be time to start building up costume supplies, because, why not? Got an afro wig and some ninja swords (with backpack carrier) for 50% off at Target today. Had to switch DVRs for Comcast, and got stuck with a very loud new one. Hoping I can stick it out until we move. But it's really loud.

So Jackson doesn't understand what the end of Daylight Savings Time means. On top of that, he's now able to get out of the crib by himself. Which means I've been up at 4am all this week, except for this morning, when he got out of his room at 3am. Good times. And to think I was wondering why I haven't been able to shake this head cold completely yet. Spent a couple afternoons at the new data center for work. A real data center. I forget, but I have to go through a man trap to get in. It's impressive. House is getting closer. More lights and speakers, and I saw a picture of the 2 racks that are going in to my data closet in the basement. Tracy's put up a couple closet organizers, and we have ours ready for the his/hers in the master. Getting close. Really close.

Finally put my Revolights back on the Pacer. Feeling good enough to think I can get back to riding. About time too. Although it seems like I'm completing all my activity circles without riding, nor am I gaining a bunch of weight, which I thought would have happened by removing an hour of daily calorie burning exercise. Go figure. I guess walking does a body good. Another health related tidbit: I no longer have a standing desk at work. Go figure. I wonder if I could set something up temporarily, since I work from a laptop now. But then again, I haven't had the urge. Had a craving last night for The Cheesecake Factory cheesecake, so Postmates to the rescue. Expensive, but totally hit the spot. Figure I could indulge since Tracy went out with friends to watch the Rousey fight. Kinda crazy.

So haven't been biking. Last time was Nov. 16. I guess I've been too run down to think about biking again. But might be time. Considering it's been like 50° in December, and I see a lot of warmer weather bikers out, might be time for me to get back out there. Would be really nice if I could get more sleep though. More than 4 or so uninterrupted hours. I feel like that's holding me back a bit. House is almost finished. Internet is up. So pretty much finished as far as I'm concerned. The rest of it is coming along. Also started getting into gyrosco.pe a bit. Which pretty much means trying to track more of my stuff, like weight and blood pressure. So with the Black Friday deals, pulled the trigger on the Withings Smart Body Analyzer and Withings Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor. So combined with Apple Health, the Apple Watch, starting to track more vitals. Tempted to try the Withings Pulse for sleep and blood oxygen levels. The sleep part would be good to know just how bad my sleep actually is. At work I took down my massive 10x 19" monitor setup. I'm down to a much simpler laptop only. Feel a bit more task focused that way. Probably not better ergonomically, and maybe I'll switch to something else later, but for the meantime, it'll do. Also tried out the new Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad 2 at home with the iMac, but doesn't work or is recognized under Windows 10 and Boot Camp. Waiting to see if Apple updates drivers or someone figures out how or where to get drivers for it.

Moved website hosting off the Mac mini to a Linode VM. Fairly easy. Fast too. A couple hiccups (lost a post from earlier today). But so far so good, up and running. Even managed to upgrade Memex to MediaWiki 1.26.0. Maybe I can try and stay closer to up to date on that. Figured out how to do mysql backups again. And got BitTorrent Sync running on a Debian box. Hopefully I'm not leaving too many holes open on a public facing server. Even if so should be easy to shut down if necessary. And won't be hosing my home internet connection. Really wishing high speed symmetrical service was available for residential. Uploading photos to Picturelife takes forever at home, but if I wait until I get to work it's nearly instant, and that's just a 100 up/down pipe. I can only dream for Google Fiber to make an appearance in the city. 3 years away maybe? If we're lucky? Moving soon. Which was the reason to move hosting out of the home. Might move it back in if I can figure out how to get a hypervisor running on the Mac mini so I can run a Debian box for hosting. Because it really is much much easier to setup and maintain so far. Haven't picked up biking again, cause I got sick again from staying up too late working and getting up too early from Jackson. But he's woken up at 6am the last couple of days, so fingers crossed that's the new trend.

Replaced safety sensors on one of the garage doors at the house. So now it can open and close. Except the remotes we have aren't compatible, but they are working with the other door (it's an old school garage with his and hers doors). So had to order up a remote for that door that will hopefully work. Got cleaners coming tomorrow. And our couch looks like it's coming tomorrow too, so will have to find a place to put that. Pictures happening on Monday, so I don't think we can put it up. Also mattress shows up on Friday, and master bed on Monday. Going to try and sneak a Christmas tree setup in there on Monday or Tuesday, maybe while the movers are moving on Tuesday, I can run out and get one. Not sure if we'd need a bigger stand or not. Seriously coming together. Went to Lucy's class Christmas performance this morning. That was fun but short.

Days away from moving. More cleaning was required, just the third floor and some misc spots on the 1st and 2nd floors. SCI came in on Friday and did final install and some initial programming. Important thing is the TV in the family room is mostly set. Went in and got my Mac mini home server on the network. Which means the iTunes server is up. Had to move some stuff last night so started watching Star Wars from the beginning. The special effects for the prequels don't really hold up. Did a little bit of my personal cross fit, had to move the sofa, mattress, and rugs into the garage for cleaning and pictures today.

Slept in the new house last night. First time. Slept on a Casper mattress. Yes, all those sponsor reads on podcasts work. Unboxing didn't live up to the hype, but it's still pretty cool how much it expanded. Got lots of stuff to do, but we at least have a Christmas tree. Tracy thought it might be cool to wrap all the unpacked boxes and leave them by the tree as presents. Cause that's a lot of boxes. Really good experience moving with New City Moving. Funny seeing the condo almost empty. Plowed through all the Star Wars moving as background while packing all night Monday. That was fun.

Less and less boxes are on the floor, and more and more of them are broken down ready for storage. Started hanging art and stuff on the walls, putting together additional shelving for the storage room in the basement, and other random miscellaneous stuff. Stayed up way too late watching movies the last 2 nights though. Tomorrowland which I thoroughly enjoyed, and Mad Max: Fury Road which was good, but not as amazing as I expected. Want to get a viewing of The Martian in. Oh, and watching movies because I put the LoveSac Sactional together. So we have a couch. Someplace to sit. Which is nice. Have some paper blinds up. Probably need more. Have the Christmas Tree lights on a schedule via HomeKit and an iDevices Switch. Had to shovel the sidewalk for the first time last night. Probably should get some salt too. Started switching all the addresses as well. Finally did Amazon today. I'm still dressing out of boxes, but should be able to unpack today. And maybe do the first set of laundry at the new place.

Still need to catch up on sleep. Wanted to do one work thing before bed, and go to sleep early, but instead fell asleep at relatively early, and work up at 4am to finish up my work. Whoops. I did manage to watch The Martian yesterday though. Thoroughly enjoyed that one. Put the old desk together for Tracy. It's a really nice desk. I put the empty moving boxes away in basement storage this morning before leaving. And actually made it work by 8am for a meeting that got pushed back to 8:30. Taking the Brown Line has been nice from the Southport stop. It's about a 15 minute walk. But nice. Although it's the holiday week so I don't know how busy it's going to be usually. Of course I should be biking instead. Still haven't unpacked my clothes yet. Soon hopefully.