Disappointed. My one word review of The Hunger Games. More detail at the link. Oh well. Watching the movie, then reading reviews, then writing my thoughts on it, makes me want to go back and reread it again, to see if I remembered the right things that I'm complaining about. Maybe after I finish Mistborn Trilogy. That's turning out to be a pretty good series too, and I'm in the middle of book 2 I think. Went ahead and bought the Harry Potter series, which became available as eBooks today. I wonder how they compare to the most recent unofficial ePub versions I have of them. Someday I'll get Tracy to give them a go. Weather took a turn to freezing the last couple of days. Still waiting for that snow sometime before summer. Oh, got to use LTE with my iPad on the way home yesterday. It really is as fast as being on a local network. Even faster possibly. Very nice. Maybe someday AT&T will get around to enabling tethering like Verizon does. Oh well. Still need to fix the buzzer, still don't want to pay for it, and still want to try and figure out what the problem is, or at least find out which wire is the problem.

Almost The Hunger Games movie time. I finished the book on Saturday. Then I started the Mistborn series, and I skipped biking to work because I'd rather read on the commute than get any exercise. Still thoroughly enjoying my new iPad. It does get warm, right where I hold it with my left hand. Noticeable. Sometimes too warm and I need to move my hand for a bit. Screen temperature (color wise) still seems to fluctuate. Or maybe it just doesn't look right with the fluorescent bulbs we have at home. Did some biking on Saturday, even went down to Grant Park, had a picnic dinner. Really looking forward to the one day they put up a better path for crossing the river at Lake Shore Drive. Just an ugly ugly bottleneck right now. Sunday went out to visit the in-laws. Weather's been really warm. Hot even. Had to crank the A/C a couple times. Will be glad when it cools down a bit, and maybe the weather will act it's age (it's spring, where's my shorts/sweatshirt weather?). Started getting my tax forms together, and need to complete that to send off to the accountant. Not looking forward to what the results of that are going to be. AAPL broke $600. Making me tempted to cash out and buy something nice. This time last year, I cashed out a little bit around $350 to buy new computers. Crazy.

Well, my new iPad is getting restored from iCloud by Tracy at home while I'm sitting here at work. Yay. Found out yesterday that the buzzer from the front door doesn't work for our unit, and from my limited testing, looks like only our unit. That sucks. Kind of seems like a mess in terms of wiring, too. From the front door, to the garage, to each individual unit's central cable pull in the master bedroom closet, then out to the intercom in the hallway. And of course nothing's labeled. It's really neat. I need to find out where the issue is. Hoping I can figure it out, instead of paying someone. Unless of course it's as simple as a broken button. Weather change last night was pretty dramatic. I read something where it dropped from 80° to 47°F in 30 minutes. That's just crazy. Rode in to work on Wednesday, had some pretty bad creaking. Figure it's the bottom bracket again. Tweaked a little, but ended up stripping a screw hole. Whoops. Thinking it might be time to retire the Sprint. Maybe next year? Hasn't stopped me from looking at new possible bikes. Mostly just city bikes. Since that's what I do. Maybe I should just look for something old and used, or maybe even a frame and do a build up from scratch. Anyway, hoping to get some more biking in this weekend. Probably head down to the Flower and Garden Show at Navy Pier. Not sure what else. Didn't bike the last 2 days because I started rereading The Hunger Games in preparation for the movie next weekend. It's still really good, and this might be my 3rd time within a year.

Even though the weather's been great, I've been slacking and not biking the last couple of days. I know, and hopefully I'll hop back on starting tomorrow. But there's so much infrastructure involved, packing a change of clothes, trying to roll the bike with the stroller over to my parents' place. But got to get back to it. Feels nice. Took the Xtracycle out on Sunday with Lucy after her afternoon nap. Picked up some longer screws for the ceiling hooks for the bike at Home Depot, where she rode the escalator a couple times. Then Tracy joined us after work at a playground before hitting up Pasta Palazzo for dinner. Lucy liked her spaghetti. Must be another growth spurt, cause she's definitely scarfing down food. Most of the time anyway. Picked up some Molly's Cupcakes over the weekend after getting more Lito's Empanadas. The cupcakes were ok, the empanadas were amazing. And that was after Green City Market and the Nature Museum.

Biking again. That's right, I've commuted to work by bike twice this week. Wednesday, on a wind advisory day, and today, as the temp drops to the thirties. But feels good. Bike feels solid too. Might have to do a little tweaking with shims on the rear axel, and clean up the cables a little bit more, but otherwise, nice and smooth. Tweaked the seat height, as I wasn't fully in the toe clips, but after that, perfect. Want to put a front rack on it, get rid of the folding racks, maybe put light mounts on the fork. Might save those light mounts for the Xtracycle though. Can't wait to take Lucy out on that again. Also need to get some tinted plexiglass or something to use as a sun shade for Lucy. Or I guess I could remember to bring her sunglasses, if she'd keep them on, for the stroller ride to Grandma's. Taking care of Lucy this weekend. Market, Museum. Wonder where we can go on Sunday? Maybe back down to Water Tower Place when it's not busy and I can find street parking. Maybe more empenada's. Upgraded all the iOS devices to 5.1. My original iPad is much faster, more responsive. In that sense it was worth it. iPhone 4S also seems pretty good with the update. Now that I'm biking again, won't really be using it as much, since I won't be sitting on the train trying to get it to connect.

Ordered. Still waiting on the tech specs to find out what to officially call it, but new iPad is coming my way, eventually. Exciting. Well, as excited as I was when I ordered the iPhone 4S. Which actually might not have been that excited. Anyway, looking forward to it. Mostly looking forward to using iPhoto for iOS and the Retina screen to manage photos from the GF1. Maybe that means I'll go back to taking more photos with a real camera? Maybe. We'll see. As for the event itself, Engadget is my new favorite for liveblogging site. The media bar across the top? Genius. gdgt is second, because they stayed up, while anyone using SribbleLive or CovertItLive failed miserably. Also, the online Apple Store failed all afternoon for me too. The main website was up and usable though. That was good. The fact that the store was down probably means good things for the company since lots of people must have been buying it. Giving up on my jailbroken devices so I can update to iOS 5.1. Really just means giving up f.lux. Which is so sad. To me it's a game changer. Looking forward to when they're able to jailbreak 5.1 and the new iPad. Although it appears I can't do delta software upgrades on jailbroken devices, I've got to tether and backup/restore. That's a good couple of hours right there.

So Apple Event tomorrow. I'll be watching and writing down my thoughts, as usual. We have something you really have to see. And touch. (March 7, 2012). Wonder what it's gonna be. Next iPad of course, and I'll be getting one, in white this time, to match the rest of my gear. Wonder how long it'll be. Wonder what new wonders it might have. Wonder if they'll have one more thing. Got our tickets for The Hunger Games (movie) at Muvico already. An early Sunday matinee. Will be back in time for dinner. Really curious to see what they kept, what they changed, and if it works. Going to try and go into it with an open mind, but of course I'll read it again before I go. I still have to plow through The Illuminatus Trilogy. Treating it like homework at this point. Oh, got the bikes up and running. I think I want to tweak the length of my brake and shifter cables though. I went too long I think. Took a ride down to work and back on Sunday. First time in maybe a couple of years? Crazy. Doable, but still sore. Might go tomorrow, since Tracy isn't working. Looking forward to getting the family out on bikes again. Also put some hooks up on the ceiling in the garage so I can hang my bike when not in use. Opens up a little bit more space. A little reorganizing, and I've got the Xtracycle backed up to the wall now too. Probably need to reorganize the garage storage too. Went to Green City Market and the Nature Museum on Saturday, saw Jay and family there. Back to Soupbox. No elusive cream of mushroom. Out and about looking for new shoes for Tracy that afternoon, ended up getting them at Moosejaw where Lucy ran around a bit. Think she's hitting another growth spurt since she seems to be eating more and often and sleeping well. She even slept in until 8am! Sunday went to Target after church, lunch at Panera. Then to the Gap after nap for pajamas, then to Mia Francesca with a crazy baby. I just don't think she likes sitting for extended periods of time, at least without a television.

Another week goes by. Did I mention that Lucy is enrolled at Park View Montessori School 3 starting in June? Crazy. Exciting and scary, and it's still 3 months away. Crazy. And I'm still just getting over the sickness she brought home from Family Grounds a couple of weeks ago. That's only going to get worse. Went to a couple more open houses last weekend, mostly Highland Park. All dreams. Did see one that was rather interesting, had an expansion over the garage that was a huge space. Had a nice kitchen. But needed some work. Of course when we look at comparable listings for our place, it's just depressing, and I think I'm resigned to staying until the market picks up at least a little bit. Don't want to lose 1/6th off our home cost in 4 years. That's just depressing. Work's busy as usual. Had to go in one night cause the A/C in the server room stopped working. That was fun. Heaters in my office also stopped working, and they had to replace a relay, so finally gave me a reason to clean up my desk area. Much cleaner now. Also using the old Mac mini as my main machine. Have to RDP into a Windows box to do any sort of SQL work, but otherwise works out ok. Trying out Microsoft Office 2011. Outlook is interesting. Only have a month trial. Really need to get the bike up and running. Need some exercise.