Second to last PT session today. Tuckered me out. Probably because I spent the weekend on vacation and didn't do my homework. And I don't think I'm hydrated. I'd have to say my favorite exercise is the balance board. Fun to see the most progress there. Also the one legged squats, since they aren't as hard as I thought they'd be. Definitely cool out, only 64° on the way home. Also getting dark out early. Had to use the lights. Also, we had some issues with mortgage bank and duplicate payment of real estate taxes last year, and finally got around to filing to get a refund a couple of weeks ago, and we got it today. A lot quicker than I thought it'd be. Very cool. Like winning a mini lotto. Also had an iChat with Russell tonight. First time for that. Pretty cool. I've decided to leave that open along with Skype, just in case. Oh, and there was that whole Snow Leopard 10.6 release last Friday. No idea when I'm going to get around to updating to it. Probably get the Mac Box Set since I need the new iLife and iWork's.

I think I want to actually try creating something. You know, try my hand at writing an honest to goodness iPhone application. I've been coming up with ideas, and have a handful, and I think I'm stagnating in my mind, and not learning, not developing. Too much passivity (television, rss feeds, forums, Facebook, Twitter, and so on). So, I'll be trying. Should be interesting. Can't actually remember the last time I tried to write a program for myself, or learned a new programming language, or a new API. Have I mentioned that I think I got sunburned from Torch Lake last weekend? At least on my face, oddly enough. Maybe it was the drive home? Either way, I'm waiting for the dead skin to fall off and new skin to come in. Almost tempted to get an exfoliant to help the process along. Or just let nature take its course. Completely forgot that Labor Day is on Monday, and I've got a 3 day weekend coming up. Kind of exciting. Tracy has to work, so not sure what I'll be up to.

Up way too late last night. Spent most of the time trying to bake a peach pie, but with a crumble/crisp topping, instead of a top crust. Not sure how it turned out, since it finished baking around 10pm, and it's supposed to rest, like a steak off the grill. Anyway, not much to show for staying up late. I did take another peek at updating the MediaWiki software, hoping that there was an updated version with a built in iPhone friendly skin, and lo and behold, there is. So maybe I can get that done at some point. Maybe before the iPhone development starts, so I have someplace to keep my notes. I have started using Evernote for some things, which I think I had originally wanted to use the Memex for. So after I update the backend, I'll shift over the stuff I started using Evernote for. Main thing was recipes. Like for the cobbler topping: 2:1:1 ratio of flour:sugar:brown sugar along with butter to bring it together. Simple, but I keep forgetting, maybe because I make it like once a year. Random thought: I wish iTunes and Apple TV spit out rss feeds of what was played or watched. Would help keep track of my media consumption. Going back to the pie, the recipe from America's Test Kitchen for pie crusts is awesome. The 2 secrets: vodka and processing half the flour with the fat then adding the rest of the flour afterwards, have resulted in a perfect crust twice now. I'm impressed.

Yay, a long weekend coming up. On the plate is a haircut tomorrow, some shopping on Sunday, and probably some relaxing on Monday. That's pretty much it. My parents are coming back into town, so probably gonna see them tomorrow. I found this out because I noticed their computer was online yesterday, so I used Apple Remote Desktop to see what was going on. That was after Tracy and I went up to Irving Park and Ashland to get some Popeye's for dinner, and we tried saucing them with buffalo wing sauce from BW3, but it wasn't too good, probably because the wings were too good to begin with. I managed to do something with my left knee, but it might be muscle related, not connective tissue. Just feels tight, but it got a whole lot better after the ride in this morning. I need to pick up a new tube for Tracy's bike on the way home.

Last PT session today. Well, hopefully. I just need to continue to do some sort of balance related exercises and I should be ok. And my knee? Patella something or other, but nothing serious. Just ice and rest. I could probably even go back to biking too. I'm thinking twitching over to the mtb for a bit. I think my pedals on the Sprint are too narrow, and my feet placement slightly awkward. We'll see. Nothing interesting on Friday, at least that I can remember. Saturday had a haircut, which meant we couldn't go to Green City Market, and then when we tried to head out for some shopping we managed to lock ourselves out of our condo. Just the backdoor, but had to call a locksmith to get us back in, since we haven't deposited emergency keys with friends and family yet. So didn't get out until mass and dinner at HB Home Bistro with my parents. Watched Knowing and Top Chef. Sunday headed out to Oak Brook for some shopping, picked up some board shorts, some chocolate, and dinner with the in-laws at Red Lobster. Monday helped a bit at the old home with my parents. Borrowed a book from the Russells.

So I've been watching bits and pieces of The Abyss over the last couple of days. A little bit at lunch, in the mornings, and I started today during watching while on the el. It's long, but it's a really good movie. And it holds up well. The CPR scene is fabulous, the liquid breathing dive thrilling, and chase scenes using submersibles? Genius. It actually made me wonder if they just wanted to make The Abyss in space and called it Armageddon. Anyway, read up on the Apple Event today, It's Only Rock and Roll, But We Like It. (September 9, 2009). Still pludging away, finally on the Mac mini. And then I get to update my iPhone to 3.1. iTunes 9 is nice. The only thing I'm really interested in is if iTunes Extras play on the Apple TV, or for that matter if they play on iPhones or iPod touches. Good to hear Steve Jobs back, as well as One More Thing.

Thursday night was going to make something for dinner, but ended up with a frozen pizza, per request. Before that I made a quick trip on bike after getting home via the El up to the Jewel on Montrose to pick up The Dark Knight and Get Smart at the Redbox there. Only one nearby that still had it. Watched Glee and more Heroes. Glee's really really good and everyone should be watching it. And after watching all that Heroes from the iTunes Store, well, fast forwarding through commercials, and having to wait a week between episodes is pretty annoying. We did just plow through the entire season in a week. Finished up the last 5 episodes tonight. Per another request had dinner Friday night at Mark's Chop Suey, my first time actually eating in that restaurant. Saturday going to the market, maybe some moving of stuff at the old home. Sunday making a trip out to Woodstock, mostly just to work on my parents' iPhones.

Had if anything, a standard Saturday for us. Rode down to Green City Market, got some Zullo's Apple Cider donuts, some other odds and ends, rode back home, made waffles for brunch. Then headed out for some shopping, found out that Smith & Hawken is going out of business, got another deck umbrella for the lounging area. Figured out we can carry 10' pieces of stuff in the car. Got a shoe shelf at The Container Store, wandered through World Market, and checked out the flagship Whole Foods in Lincoln Park. That place is awesome. Lots of free samples, and lots of stuff that looks awesome. Made ribs for dinner, watched Baby Mama. A pretty good day. Sunday headed out to Woodstock and spent 5:30 hrs updating computers and iPhones for my parents. Brought back crab legs from my parents for dinner, and watched the Bears lose. Other than that, only other new news is I've started using Lose It!, an iPhone app to track caloriic intake. Not sure if it's gonna work, and if I'll keep up with it, as it's a little annoying to keep records in all the different places I'm keeping data.

Back on the bike today. Took the Dynamic Sprint to work. Locked it up backwards in the rack to try and make more room for bikes. Might end up doing that all the time from here on out. But I took it pretty easy, and the knee felt a little funny, but not bad funny, not out of place funny, more like haven't been used in a while funny. Tried to spin more, maybe way more, since I don't have a bikeputer, so I don't know what my cadence is. Otherwise, nice and easy. Bike makes a lot of noise though. Maybe I'll take it apart again completely and try and put it back together again. Otherwise, went over on my caloric intake again today, but I was estimating my bike speed as exercise, which is probably closer to correct because of the stop and go nature of my commute. I was planning on using GPS Lite (iPhone App) to track my commute, so I can have an average speed or something. Maybe I"ll remember tomorrow. Leftovers for dinner. Oh, and finally got our wedding video. It was mailed 83 days ago through the USPS from just north of Milwaukee. Seriously. Anyway, transcoding it now to get on the iPhones and Apple TVs, since I don't have a DVD player hooked up anywhere. Guess we could watch it on a computer, but that's no fun.

Riding today was much cooler, temperature wise, than yesterday. Much nicer. Maybe just because I get to use my vest. I love that thing. More leftovers for dinner. All in all fairly uneventful day and night. Tracy Skyped with Gabe, Sania and Ella for a bit after I got home. Tried to figure out how to split up the files off the Drobo back onto the firewire enclosure so I can do a reformat and repartition. Watched some odds and ends on TV, like Man Vs. Wild, some Discovery shows about shopping malls and some grub festival in the jungle. Then looked through some trailers on the Apple TV, nothing looked extremely good, except maybe Bandslam. I'll catch that on cable or Redbox someday. I did see that Sunshine is available for rental or purchase on Apple TV though. So that's tempting.

Completely spaced on updating last night. Maybe it was drinking wine for the first time in a while, or watching live television, 3 hours worth, also for the first time in a while. Either way, whoops. Thursday I wanted to know what my average speed was on my commute to work, and it was only 10.9mph. Top speed of 19mph, but only 11mph average? Too many stops, I'm hoping, skews the numbers. I also realized I'm much faster with less effort when I go into the drops. Confirmed that on this morning's commute. Picked up some groceries on the way home last night, and CardStar didn't work again. Kind of annoying. I just need to put one of those small preferred cards on my keychain. Tracy had a craving for Filipino spaghetti, sweet, but no hot dogs. Watched Saturday Night Live Thursday Update, Parks & Recreation, The Office, Community and The Mentalist. All live. With commercials. Odd. And not that bad. Got the Beachathlon Saturday morning, and I'm going in not having run, probably, since Muddy Buddy. Also Tracy wants to head out to the 'burbs, and we've got to go household supply shopping, and get some junk food, and watch a movie. Haven't gone to see a movie in a long time.

I am a victim of Identity Theft. Got a call Sunday morning from Sears Credit Services Fraud department. I get one of those free credit reports, there's a couple credit inquiries from 9/19 from Lowes and Nordstroms. So I do some research, figure out out that I probably am a victim of identity theft, and start going through the steps to get it taken care of. Perp opened accounts and used them in and around Crestwood, MO, just outside St. Louis. But was using an old address. I'm impressed with the stores and companies that have called, and so far only Nordstroms actually denied to open a new account. But the others all marked them as flagged. Of course, I wonder how many accounts were opened, and when it started, since I got a call today from Kohl's about an account opened on 9/18. Sucks, but I'm a little surprised it's taken this long, considering the online life I've lived. It sucks, but it's been fairly straightforward to start the process to get things fixed. I'm curious to see if they actually catch the perp(s) since they applied for accounts in person at stores with security cameras. Also be interesting to see how and where my info was stolen, bought, or traded for. Besides that, not a bad weekend. Friday night watched some TV. Saturday morning did the Beachathlon, which wasn't too bad. Definitely sore from it for the next couple of days. First time, as far as I can remember, eating at Castaways. Ended up napping on the beach and then back home on the deck. Stayed in and watched Yes Man. Sunday went looking for the Pumpkin donut from Dunkin Donuts, came home, started dealing with my stolen identity, then lunch at White Castle, home supply shopping at Target, watching the Bears win, and finished transferring and copying stuff from the Drobo to the firewire enclosure. The Drobo's been reformatted, and I've started the copy back. Had our first meeting as the 3535 N Reta Ave Condo Association. I'm the treasurer, which is a little funny considering. Then made fried rice for dinner and watched Dark Blue, How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory.

Good news, Tracy isn't a victim of Identity Theft, just me. Found out they also tried to open accounts at JCPenney and Home Depot. More awesomeness. Also found out that they're providing an Illinois drivers license as additional identification. That's impressive. And I wonder how that happened since I've had the same license since 2003 on me. So that's a new piece of information. Decided to redo my iTunes library completely, so deleted everything, and started the long slow process of readding it all to the library, and letting iTunes handle the file management. It's much much better now. Especially when it comes to video files. Watched House and Accidentally on Purpose with chicken adobo for dinner. Been riding the mountain bike this week. It's a nicer ride with the bigger fatter tires. And I might go faster on it. I'll have to double check with GPSLite on the commute tomorrow. But the humidity means I need to spend some time off the bike before entering the building to dry off a bit. Gotta love that Chicago weather.

Ok, this Identity Theft thing really sucks now. Before I wasn't having too much of an issue with it, with the criminals just creating new fraudulent accounts. But today I realized they had used my Macy's account. Worse off, they had called on 9/16 to increase the credit limit. Not sure when they used it though, but could have actually been yesterday or even today. And they used a drivers license as identification. Seriously. I don't know how someone else has a drivers license in my name. Is it really that easy to get one? What do you need? Anyway, I need to figure out what needs to be done about that. Besides that, been pretty busy at work, staying later. Good and productive. With the 2010 new bike lines out, I'm pondering what my next bike will be. And then just have to wait until both my current bikes break down. I did manage to get up to 25 mph on the mtb today. It's definitely faster than the Sprint, that's for sure. Watched some new shows today, Modern Family and Cougar Town, and the season premiere of The New Adventures of Old Christine.

It just keeps going. Got a credit card I didn't apply for in the mail today. When is this Identity Theft stuff gonna stop? Granted, it's all from the weekend, but I hate stumbling upon the info days later. I am getting some good tips from all the people I talk to in the Fraud departments of the various credit bureaus. So should, hopefully, be pretty straightforward. But still really annoying. I imagine though this person going to this mall, I think it's a mall, and applying for store credit cards, getting them, maxing them out, and moving on to the next store. This person, walking through a mall, bags and bags of fraudulently purchased goods, going from store to store. Ugh. Anyway, bus and el today, no bike commute. Talked with Tracy about what I need to do to purchase another bike. Probably need to get rid of one, if not both, but I like having a spare. And then wondering which one would be better to get rid of, considering what the new one would be, and repurposing the old one. Maybe turn the Sprint into more of a city bike. Or keep the mtb for the possibility of turning it into an Xtracycle. I think I've settled on a nice steel frame road bike more relaxed than racing, but a road bike. Odd to be thinking of spending money while going through an Identity Theft, but it's not like life stops.

Didn't learn of any new accounts from Identity Theft today. So that's the first day since I learned of it. A little relieving. Still got some additional steps to take, start mailing things out tomorrow, since I want those store's investigation teams to start pulling video and stills of the perp. Hoping I can get a copy and post it prominently on the web. Brought home Arby's for Tracy for dinner. She's been craving them since seeing the commercials on TV, and since she works at home she can't just run out and get some for lunch. Unlike me, where I can walk the 2 blocks at work over to the train station to get some. One benefit about working downtown. Otherwise, dealing with some iTunes Library issues, with some TV Episodes showing up as movies, and cleaning up some titles here and there, and now I have to rebuild my playlists used to put music on the iPhone. Speaking of which I enabled MMS on both of our phones. Sent each other photos, and one video. I guess it's nice. Might be marginally faster than email. Figure it'll come in handy when asking Tracy if I'm buying the right stuff at the market or the grocery store. Tracy's working this weekend, and I've got a lot of chores to do. Hopefully I can actually cross some stuff off the list. But today was just a lazy Friday, watched Bones, Parks & Recreation and Community, oh, and the Saturday Night Live Thursday Update which is just an awful name of the show. Just call it Thursday Night Live.

So I started cleaning out the second bedroom this weekend as Tracy was working. I brought back a few more things from the old home, and well, I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Finally figured we can't just keep piling boxes in her "office" anymore. And I needed to go through all the paperwork, and all the things we did move, but just put away in the second bedroom to worry about later. So it's finally later. And now it looks like we're just moving in, because I moved all the stuff out into the living room to get organized. One good thing, we finally put stuff away in the linen closet. So that's cool. Otherwise, have lots of things to find spaces for, especially paperwork. But mostly just trying to organize, then put back. Probably means we need to get some nice looking storage boxes for bookshelves and stuff. Besides that, got the Volvo emissions tested, watched Duplicity (loved it!) and some other background stuff, started up transcoding DVDs again, then father-in-law birthday dinner on Sunday night. So really have to get organizing now.

Best Buy. Another one on the Identity Theft pile. Yay. Also picked up copies of the police report yesterday morning. So I've now been to Chicago Police Headquarters. Fun. So now have to send out all the affidavits as I get them. Yippee. Picked up food from Taco Burrito Palace II for dinner, watched House, How I Met Your Mother, Accidentally On Purpose, The Big Bang Theory, and did my foot exercises. I'm back on that horse again after a couple weeks off. Also brought home a couple cupcakes from The Cupcake Counter so Tracy could try it out, and she approves. So that's cool. Always satisfying to find something someone likes.

Ended up watching like 5 episodes of The Office in syndication last night, started on WGN then TBS. It's good background stuff. Also watched it because all the television we do watch and record is on Mondays and Thursdays, especially Thursdays. We can't even check out Flash Forward because there's no DVR tuner available. Awesome. And they didn't offer the pilot as a free iTunes Store download. Which is fine. Maybe if it continues to get good word of mouth, we'll get the entire season in iTunes and watch it all in one go, without commercials. I'm back off the Redbox wagon, picking up He's Just Not That Into You and Monsters vs Aliens last night and Speed Racer (again) and Confessions of a Shopaholic tonight. Went to Xoco for lunch with Tracy today on her day off. Pretty cool to go jetting through the city on my bike to lunch. Food was good too. Would be better if they had some sort of signage or instruction visible. Take out orders can go right up to the register. If waiting for a table, tell the hostess, and wait in line, then when seats are available, she'll give you a number placard. Use this to place your order, then go find the hostess again to get seated, and display the placard. Churros were really good. The agua fresca del dia (Pineapple, cucumber and lime) was refreshing.