I can't believe it but it's been 4 months since I've ridden my bike to work. Long time. As soon as I finish Dragons of Spring Dawning, I'll do the work to get my bike back up and running and I'll start riding again. That'll also make it easier to check out real estate by riding by. I should actually finish up with the book by tonight, so hopefully that means riding tomorrow. Last night did some exercises, which lately I've been doing while watching I, Robot piecemeal. Tracy made pork chops and a portobello caprese. We watched The New Adventures of Old Christine, How I Met Your Mother, and The Big Bang Theory. I looked for new wallpapers to use with my iPhone, and want to try and use the Arashikage Clan logo, which is actually the 63rd Hexagram of the I Ching. But I need to find some image editing program, which might end up being Keynote. Also thought about using the Chicago 2016 logo, but I couldn't get it to work properly under Mac OS X. Worked fine on Windows XP though. Just realized I could have done it via Parallels. Whoops. Got a meeting with Jason tonight. Also, Tracy and I are thinking of putting an offer in on another property versus waiting for something else we might like better.

Should have worked on the bike yesterday, which actually just entails handlebar tape and putting fenders on, making sure the tires are inflated, and instead had dinner (Tracy made some ground turkey tomato sauce noodle dish with cilantro) and watched New Amsterdam and The New Adventures of Old Christine and used Keynote to create some iPhone wallpapers for myself. Anyway, I did have another 30 pages to go in Dragons of Spring Dawning that I finished up this morning, so I should be riding tomorrow. My newest want is a Ricoh GR Digital II: a compact camera that's capable of full manual control, fixed 28mm lens, and shooting RAW. I'd want that instead of a full fledged DSLR. And my whole Flickr reinfatuation isn't doing so well. It's just a problem not having a true desktop. Maybe if I use Image Capture instead of iPhoto on the Mac mini, and always have a card reader on the mini, I'll be better about moving photos off the cameras. And then I can just do an import to iPhoto when I get around to it on the MacBook. Hmmm, maybe I'll set that up tonight, after I do the bike work, after I do my exercises.

So, wanted to ride the bike today, even got so far as Pine Grove, but I turned around and took the bus instead. Why? My front tire rubs against my new fender. Not good. Didn't notice it until I pumped up the tires. And then the rubbing started. Not sure how to fix it either. I did wrap the handlebars in tape. That was a lot easier than I thought. Of course, it could all unravel the first time I ride it, so I'll just wait and see. Also need to trim the fender struts a little, so they don't poke my legs when turning. Otherwise, bike looks in good shape. Can't wait to get out there again. Of course, I started working on the bike pretty late last night, so I'm kind of tired now. I did take the el home last night, watched Mad Men on the way, walked by 863 W. Fletcher to check it out, picked up some stuff at Jewel (managed to pick out a ripe avocado, more luck than anything). Did some exercises, used Image Capture to upload photos to the Mac mini, imported to iPhoto on the MacBook to show Tracy. Watched Top Chef, Tracy made guacamole and flank steak. And then I worked on my bike.

Lazy last night. Or just dealing with a headache. Either way, came home and just plopped down on the couch. Watched Foods of Chicago: A Delicious History, which made me hungry. Tracy was exercising, and didn't know what to make for dinner, so I just started eating stuff out of the fridge, some cold fried chicken and chips and dip. Healthy, I know. Tracy made herself a reuben. We watched some reruns of The Office, and still so funny. Early bedtime, too. Oh, but one of the disks went south in my firewire enclosure. Go figure, it's the iTunes Store backup disk. Invalid B-Tree nodes or some such nonsense. Disk Utility couldn't fix it, so I bought an upgrade to DiskWarrior, and hopefully that'll take care of it. Good thing the other disks didn't go bad, and it was only the backup, and the main source of all the files is still around. If I can get it back up, I'll have to move stuff off of it and reformat it to be safe. And yeah, I really don't have a true backup backup system for purchased iTunes stuff. Maybe I should. Nothing planned for the weekend. Except laundry.

Friday night didn't do my exercises. Whoops. Said we'd do 'em this weekend. But that never happened. Instead I made crepes for dinner, and Tracy made the chicken in cream sauce for them. That was good. Also had plenty leftover for breakfast. I think we ended up watching Miss/Guided. Saturday we went shopping at Old Orchard to enjoy the weather. Got the pants I'm wearing now, on sale, at the Gap, along with a couple shirts and a hoodie sweater I've been eyeing for the last 6 months or so. It was on sale and in my size and color. Finally. Otherwise, ate some mall food, saw some really expensive furniture, and then wandered over to Muvico Rosemont 18 to see Leatherheads. We got there a little early for our reservations, so we napped in the car in the parking garage before heading in for drinks before the movie, and some movie food during the movie. The movie itself was just ok. And I still love that theater. Afterwards, we went to dinner at Gibsons in Rosemont, which was right around the corner. Good piece of steak that I couldn't finish. Sunday, got the bikes ready to check out a bunch of open houses: 639 W. Briar (eh, no fireplace), 2658 N. Mildred ($2.9 million SFH), 2645 N. Mildred (eh, odd layout), 2635 N. Mildred (new favorite), and 863 W. Fletcher (eh, semi useless dog house). Our new favorite we weren't even planning on checking out, since I thought it was just like 2645. I was totally wrong. I think it's very similar to 907 W. Roscoe, and priced similarly. Hoping for a second showing sometime this week. Oh, and it's in Lincoln Park. After a little snack at home, went grocery shopping at Whole Foods, reheated leftovers for dinner, and watched Ratatouille off the Apple TV. Also tried to watch 2 Weeks Notice, but that never ended up downloading last night. So, still not riding to work, still need to do some front fender work. Otherwise, it was nice getting out on the bike again.

Took the el home last night for a change. No real reason for it either. First time in a while I've been on a train that was packed. Usually I'm able to catch an emptier one. Odd. I think it was busy because of Sox fans, but I'm not sure. That's just a guess. But getting some fresh air on the walk home was good. Watched Family Guy's Blue Harvest, which was kind of funny. Did some exercises, Tracy made lamb chops and asparagus for dinner, which I ate while watching Bones and Samantha Who?. For some reason I've started just using Tracy's plate, after she's done eating, so I don't have to do one more plate when doing dishes. We don't really eat too often at the dinner table. In the new place, hopefully. Started up FTP'ing eric.abando.com source code and files, since I'm starting up a development environment again. Took all night. That's a lot of files. I think I'll be shutting down the gallery soon though.

I know, a late posting. It probably means the post tomorrow will be equally late or incredibly short. So watched a bit of Lucky You while Tracy made shepherd's pie. I do like how the movie shows off Las Vegas. Always good to see. Also watched Eli Stone while eating the pie, which was good, even if it was made with ground turkey instead of beef or lamb. Also spent some time trying to figure out to get Movable Type and WordPress MU installed locally. Getting all the requirements installed and working properly is the annoying part. Mysql, DBD::mysql, and php all talking together. Ugh. But finally got it all up and running, and just need to pick one to go with for Tun's Website. Otherwise, not much. I guess I'll just save tonight for tomorrow, so at least I'll have something to write about it.

So second viewing of 2635 N. Mildred last night. Went OK. But we're passing. Things we like and need now include attached garage, and Lakeview location. Still. Might have some more possibilities as Adam does his agent networking, so we'll see. Had dinner at Smoke Shack, a BBQ place down the street. Tasted very smokey, and we tasted citrus in the sauce. So it wasn't quite for us. Took the bus back home, did some grocery shopping. Figured out How to Record from DVR to Mac OS X, in order to get a recording of Spice Up My Kitchen for Lisa and Ryan. We'll record it tonight, I'll edit it and transcode it to a smaller format and put it online somewhere for them to watch or download. But it's pretty cool. I could actually get much more HD content to play back via the DVR and stored on computers, if I really wanted to, but it's not really super easy, at least not Apple easy. Weather, of course, has taken a turn for the worse. Would have been fun to bike in though.

Last night just folded some laundry. Tracy made some ratatouille, which she wasn't happy with, probably because it was ratatouille. I finished up Lucky You, which I thought was ok. Ended up watching New Amsterdam with dinner. Tried transferring over Spice Up My Kitchen from the DVR to the MacBook last night, but failed because I tried fast forwarding through commercials. So I retransferred it this morning, no fast forwarding, and just edited out the commercials in Quicktime Pro after transcoding it with ffmpegx. Super super easy. Tracy's working this weekend, as has put in a request for souffle, so I'll make the standard chocolate one tomorrow night with lemon chicken, and then try a cheese one on Sunday. Probably be helping Russell with his new MacBook tomorrow, and watching a few movies. Maybe I'll archive off the Smallville episodes off the DVR, now that I know how. Just annoying that the process is realtime. Oh, went out to lunch with some coworkers to Sushi Sai, a new place that opened just around the corner. It was pretty good, and probably where I'll be getting lunch once a week from here on out.

So, I didn't really update the Memex over the weekend, and I've completely forgotten what we had for dinner Friday night. Like a complete blank. Oh, wait, we had leftovers. Anyway, I just slipped this weekend, and didn't update at all. And I didn't take any notes. Anyway, just quiet couch time on Friday night. Probably watched 30 Rock and The Office. Tracy worked, so I didn't do anything exciting this weekend. Saturday took a nap in the morning while Next played on the DVR. Cleaned up a little, hung out with my parents for a bit, went grocery shopping, made dinner for the four of us (Lemon Chicken, Special Rice, and Sesame green beans). Even used a tablecloth. Didn't make chocolate souffles, since I didn't know we ran out of cocoa. Probably watched something on TV after dinner, but don't remember. Probably Eli Stone and Scrubs. Sunday, went to mass, got some coffee from Coffee & Tea Exchange to drink and for the espresso machine, and grocery shopped at Treasure Island. Twice. Had to go back for the cocoa which I forget. That should teach me not to go shopping without a list. Took another nap. Worked on my bike, took it out for a spin. Needed to tweak the shifter a bit. But otherwise, good to go. Made cheese souffles for an appetizer, chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and broccoli (ok, Tracy made the broccoli), and chocolate souffles for dessert. That took a while. Also not entirely happy with the souffles, but I bet that's because I tried to halve both recipes, and then put them together, because that's the only way I could think of halving a 3 egg recipe. Anyway, finally watched Two Weeks Notice rented from the Apple TV.

Back to commuting to work by bike. Good times. Except for the creaking. Lots of it yesterday, so I greased some screws last night. The ride in this morning was relatively quiet, until it started creaking again, not nearly as bad though. I'm thinking I need to check the cranks, and grease them up. Annoying. But otherwise, riding smooth and easy. And slowly. Pretty much everyone passes me by. Rode up to the Russells after work last night to help them out with the new computer. Also means I got one of my small enclosures back. Not sure what I'll use it for, but it's nice to have. Made it home to Tracy no problems. I'd have to say this might be my favorite time of the year to ride, since it's cold enough that I don't get that sweaty, but warm enough to still ride relatively comfortably. It's nice. Also, I'm tired. First time back doing some real physical activity in a while. So that's good. Tracy cooked up some longanisa for dinner. Watched Samantha Who?, then bedtime. Headed to a Cubs game tonight with Jespy via free tickets from my parents from a patient. Hopefully it won't be too chilly out.

Cubs game last night was good. Not too chilly, Cubs won, only missed the first 2 innings, got some beers and hot dogs and nachos with some friends. Good times. Always nice to be able to walk there and not have to worry about getting there. Also walked down Fremont afterwards, and it was surprisingly quiet. So that satisfies one of my worries about possibly living on that street. Had some ice cream when I got home, watched How I Met Your Mother before bedtime. Riding in today was hard, partly because of the wind and partly because it's my 3rd time after a long hiatus (about 4 months, 18 days). Also interested in the Urbanathlon, since I'm already doing Muddy Buddy, figure why not something else? Maybe give me something to actually get in shape for. Still need to fix the bike creaking. And since everyone passes me, makes me wonder if something's not right on the bike, and I'm not as efficient as I could me. Also makes me wonder what it might be like on a normal chain drive bike, and if I'd be any faster. Oh well. I'll keep cruising along and watch people pass me by. I'm in no hurry.

I was hoping for some rain this afternoon, maybe a thunderstorm. I was looking forward to riding home in it. But doesn't look like there'll be any such thing. Looks pretty nice out. Ride in was OK. Took me about 32 minutes from home to work. I actually paid attention this morning. Last night started making dinner before Tracy got home, lots of traffic. I just had to fry the garlic lemon marinated chicken breasts and finish them in the oven. I also decided to make cookies because of a craving. Yum. Watched Bones and The Big Bang Theory. BBT seems to get worse and worse. Also did some work on Tun's Websites, specifically, the travel ones. I took the easy way out and just had multiple independent WordPress installations. Easier than trying to get WordPress MU or Movable Type working. Less integration, but easier to set up and go. Figured maybe I can finally try and update his math website as well. Been a while since I said I'd work on it. But WP is pretty sweet. Tried to get Ravinia tickets to Sheryl Crow, but the website was unresponsive, and then threw an error when I was trying, and when I tried again? All sold out. Ugh. But definitely gonna try and get up there sometime this summer. That and a drive-in. I don't care if it's just Tracy and I, but I'm going.

Decided to take it easy this morning on the ride in. Slower pace, no rush, nice and easy. Didn't get to ride home in the rain last night because there wasn't any rain. Definitely a bit colder than I thought. Just felt like a mass of cold air. Likewise on the ride in this morning, but that seemed to change right around Chicago Ave. I think, the air wasn't as cold. Anyway, Tracy made a paprika based spice rub for some pork chops last night for dinner. We watched Eli Stone and 30 Rock. Eli is one of my new favorites. A show about a lawyer who's also a prophet? Yup, it's good. The writers/creators also do Brothers & Sisters, so maybe I should give that a whirl, and they had done Jack & Bobby, so maybe it's not so much of a surprise. Also upgraded Tun's Website to the newest version of WordPress, and now finally tweaking my dev environment to fully simulate the production environment. Which should make it easier to develop for. Dinner with Bryan and his brother at Pequod tonight. Never been, but should be good. Oh, and this whole earthquake thing? No idea. Never felt a thing. Probably headed out to some open houses this weekend, just more free looks.

Boy, when I do this biking thing, I do this biking thing. Friday night biked back home, met up with Tracy, then we biked down to Pequod. Then we biked a bit more, side streets and stuff on the way back. Ended up watching The Office and Scrubs. Saturday Tracy made breakfast of grits and bacon. Then off on the bikes again, checking out open houses. Went and saw 827 W. Roscoe, which was really cute and quaint and would be high on my list if it had a garage and a 2nd bathroom, and 2224 W. Roscoe over in Roscoe Village, which was out of our price range. Again, more side streets on the way home, I think heading down Wellington. Tracy made crab cakes for dinner, and I started to watched Flyboys and we watched New Amsterdam after dinner at the table. Oh, and on the bike ride home I thought something funny was going on with my left pedal, and when I worked on it that night, low and behold, the pedal was stripping out the left crank. Awesome. So I have a request in to possibly get that covered by the warranty. We'll see. In the meantime, I'm on the mtb. Took that out Sunday for more open houses, one in Old Townish at 1442 N. Mohawk, eh, then back up in Lincoln Park at 923 W. Wrightwood. I had screwed up with the time, and we showed up after the open house, but the guy was nice enough to let us walk through anyway. That one was nice, bathroom and stuff in the dog house, but surprisingly small rooms. Then across the border onto a busier street, probably the busiest one we've seen, at 2854 N. Halsted. That one had an elevator, but seemed pretty simple. Then we had a little snack at Dunkin Donuts before trekking down to River North hoping to see 375 W. Erie, but I screwed up there again, as the open house is for next Sunday. Whoops. Anyway, we ended up over in Millennium Park and walked around for a bit before biking up the lake and stopping in Old Town for a small dinner at Trattoria Roma. They had pretty good carpaccio, so it's on the list. Then we biked home, more side streets, then headed through the park before ending up at Treasure Island for supplies for crepes. We had a craving after seeing La Creperie on Check, Please! the night before. So that was dessert, and well needed after all that biking. So I'm on the mountain bike, and whenever I am, I think about converting it to a single speed. I'm pretty much using it as a single speed now, but I could still remove the useless cogs just to clean it up. And the bike itself could use a cleaning. And a rack. And a front fender.

Was looking forward to the ride home through thunderstorms tonight. But doesn't look like that's gonna happen. Last night Tracy made her Asian glazed chicken and fried rice. She put on Flyboys when she started cooking, and I finally finished that movie off. It's ok, but I expected a little more out of the zeppelin fight. We watched Top Chef and Bones with dinner. That's pretty much it. Did a little real estate related searches, coming across a site that lists demo and building permits in our ward, and found a couple locations, 821 W. Roscoe and 721 W. Buckingham that are supposed to have 4 unit masonry buildings going up. Both of those are right in our prime locations. Hopefully they'll put something nice up. I looked up the one on Roscoe because we saw it starting construction while looking at open houses on Saturday. I'll have to take a peek at Buckingham on the way home.

Whoops, missed yesterday. Like Wednesday never happened. But nothing really interesting did. Rode to work. Worked. Rode home. Tried working in Sketchup, but failing miserably. I might have to watch some video tutorials to find out how to use it. Had leftovers for dinner. Tracy watched Smallville and Samantha Who?. She pretty much went to bed on the couch, and I watched an episode of Mad Men. Oh, Tuesday night rode home, took some photos and checked out 721 W. Buckingham and 821 W. Roscoe. Of the two, Roscoe is actually under construction, and is located right next to a park. It probably has a pretty good view as well. I wonder how long it takes for something like that to go to market? Also Tuesday night helped make chicken parmigiana (pounded and breaded), watched Eli Stone, The Big Bang Theory, and How I Met Your Mother. So that was the last 2 days.

On the way home last night there was a lot of traffic around Merchandise Mart. Seemed like a conference of some sort, but that might be odd given that I was riding by at 6pm or so. Lots of cabs, some limos, people looking for parking. Always nice to be able to ride past stuck traffic like that. Still didn't get to ride home in the rain, just a little sprinkling here and there, but no rain. Maybe today. Watched Mad Men while Tracy made dinner, lamb shoulder steaks and a 2 bean salad. Watched Top Chef, Scrubs and The Office after dinner. Was able to readjust the DVR schedule when the Sox/Yankees game had a rain delay, and thus pushed back Smallville. So that's good. Good news about my bike, I'm getting replacement cranks shipped out. So I should be back on my road bike next week hopefully. I should do some maintenance on the mountain bike this weekend though. And do laundry. Headed out with the boys to Chicago Brauhaus Saturday night. Might check out some open houses by myself on Sunday, depending on how long the piano tuning will take. Getting a little warm and muggy, and waiting for the cold spell or at least the A/C to kick in. Also, my legs are sore. Too much biking? Too much commuting on the mtb? Got plenty of movies to watch on the weekend as well. Rented Hitman and The Kingdom on the Apple TV.

Friday night watched A Good Year. That and The Holiday are I think two movies that I'll just sit and watch whenever I notice them on one of the HD movie channels. Tracy made lambchops for dinner, and she's figured out perfectly how to cook them. Impressive. Watched Grey's Anatomy after dinner. On Saturday while Tracy was working, I got a haircut, watched Gone in Sixty Seconds, Fracture which was pretty good, and Hitman which was pretty much as expected. I also finally did some work on Tun's Website, the travel blog, and put together a quick little China summary page. Took me a while to figure out the UTF8 stuff, but now it actually looks OK. Oh, and did a little cleaning and organizing. Headed out by bike to Chicago Brauhaus for dinner with the boys, since Whitney was in town. Giant liters of beer around the table, plates of meat and sausage, and good times. Ended up at The Grafton down the street afterwards, and I got put in the doghouse for not telling my wife I was still out. My bad. But I think that'd be the first time I've been out with the boys for a pretty late night. Won't happen again, the forgetting to notify. Made it home in one piece, and Lincoln Square isn't far at all by bike. Very easy to get to as well. Sunday did laundry, fell asleep on the couch for a good long while, watched Broken Arrow, had the piano tuned. Went out to dinner when Tracy got back at Harry Caray's Tavern. It's ok. They ran out of BBQ sauce. Walked around a bit, got some ice cream from Windy City Sweets, watched 30 Rock and Desperate Housewives. Finally lubed up the chain this morning before the commute in, was thinking of getting some degreaser on the way home, but now that it's raining, I'll probably just head straight home. Finally, some rain while biking.

Rode home in the rain last night. As much as I was looking forward to it, I was disappointed. Too cold. No front fender, and no panniers or rack trunk made it annoying. Oh, and my chain kept jumping, but I somehow managed to get it back on repeatedly without having to stop. That's pretty cool, if annoying. So I get home, and my new cranks are in the mailbox. Package looks small, but they look great. Tracy made her turkey chili for dinner. Did my exercises. Watched Smallville, The Big Bang Theory, and How I Met Your Mother. Put the new cranks on the road bike. Rewrapped my handlebars while I was at it. Remembered to bring along crank and pedal wrenches, just in case, on the ride in this morning. Good thing, cause I needed to tighten the left pedal. I think that's how I stripped out the left crank before, the pedal got loose, kept pedaling, and it jumps a thread, and then grinds away. But I caught it this time. Otherwise, the ride in was nice and easy. It's nice having gears again. However after a week or two on the mtb, I realize how slow I was going before. And maybe that the shaft drive is inefficient. And that I really need clips of some sort on the pedals. But the gear thing is awfully nice. As is not needing to tie up the right pants leg. But it's good to have a backup bike, just in case. Went to lunch to celebrate a coworker's birthday at Poag Mahone's. Had a burger, swiss, grilled onions, bacon, and BBQ sauce. Yum. Tracy's headed out to visit her parents tonight, which conveniently makes her miss Cubs traffic. So I'm on my own for dinner, and not sure what to go with.

I went with macaroni and cheese for dinner last night. Worked a little on trying to rip a News segment from a web video for Nicole. Watched The Kingdom, which was good, but could have been better if not for the shaky cam. Woe to the inventor or the pioneer user of the shaky cam. I don't think I've seen a use of it that I liked, except maybe in The Blair Witch Project. I feel a big budget movie should never be cheapened by hand held camera use. Ok, moving on. I realized I might have to completely remove the shaft drive to get at the creaking problem on the road bike. I didn't grease up any of that at all, so that's probably a giant creak monster right there. Not sure when I'll get around to that, since it's a pretty big production. But then I'll be able to tweak my internal hub shifter, which needs to get adjusted. The shifter itself came loose this morning, and it wasn't easily tightened. Also annoying. Oh, and it's May tomorrow. Crazy. Probably be looking at some more real estate this weekend. Prices for the places still on the market seem to be trending down, which might be good for us. Wait and see.