Well, today's Lucy's half birthday. And she's adorable. Had to break out the weather shield for the BOB Revolution this morning, and she was in her Halloween costume as well, in order to stay warm. Must have been warm enough, cause she ended up sleeping on the way over. Get to go in to work next week to help out with System Administration tasks. Excited to do more reading on the El, maybe even ride my bike maybe? And eat out some more. Got Lucy an ExerSaucer a couple weekends ago, so that's been fun for her. Nice for us too, so we don't have to carry her around or hold her as she bounces. She's into the bouncing now. And the peek-a-boo. And she's holding to her sleep schedule, too. Down by 7pm, up by 6-7am. It's been nice. Forgot to mention something else from San Diego besides the plague I caught: I have a scratch on the screen of my iPhone now. About time, since it's been naked since I got it, but still kind of annoying. Also on Thursday went out to lunch with my wife. She was working that night, so we had time to actually go out to Nookies Tree for a sit down lunch together. Surprised we hadn't done it before, since we both work from home. Headed to Green City Market tomorrow, then making waffles on Sunday. Oh, and happy Halloween.

So today I felt a little worse than yesterday, like the sickness was coming back, or maybe it was a new illness, or maybe it's cause I had to go into the office. Feel better now at the end of the day though. So hopefully it was just a one day relapse. Hoping. Finished up the first book in the Mobile Suit Gundam trilogy. Wish they had a movie adaptation of this novelization of the original anime. I think I would like it better than the source material. Got to leave work early due to to the possibility of bad weather, which was nice. Tracy came and picked me up, since she was out in the car already and Lucy had just started to nap when they got close to home. I made her drive up Halsted so I could see the new Apple Store. Looks like a huge waste of space for a single floor building. Figure I'll check it out at some point to pick up iLife '11 and the check out the new MacBook Airs. I used my old MacBook at the office today and the constant fan operation is pretty annoying. Apple Hardware longevity is killing me right now. Just waiting for it to kick the bucket to get a new one, but it just keeps plugging away.

Still got a lingering cough. But feel fine. Wondering if it's time to see a doctor. Funny though to read about lots of other people going down with the flu as well, of course assuming that the flu is what I've got. Spent the weekend doing daddy day care while Tracy worked. Got Adesso carry out for dinner Saturday night, and also picked up some Paciugo Gelato to go. Remind me never to get any nut related flavor for fear of peanuts used, even in a flavor like Ginger almond. Otherwise, not much going on. Working, still sleeping on the couch since bohh of us have coughs that could wake the other up. I am headed in to the office tomorrow, so it'd be funny if I managed to bring this illness to even more people in the Chicagoland area. Also looking forward to eating some fast food, maybe some cupcakes, or donuts. Exciting. Thought about riding my bike, which would have made it super easy to drop by the Lincoln Park Apple Store, but considering the weather advisory, i'm wisely deciding against it.

Still sick, but not bad really. Just got all that mucus that I need to get rid of. I probably didn't help much by taking it easy on the liquids earlier this week when I thought I was almost better. Going back to drinking hot water and/or chicken broth and breathing in the steam yesterday worked wonders. So just have to keep it up. Watched Back to the Mac (October 20, 2010) yesterday. New iMovie Trailer maker is impressive. Smaller snippets like that seem better for personal videos. Otherwise, new Macbook Airs. If I needed a laptop, which I don't, and even if my Macbook broke, I don't know if I'd even bother getting a new one, even for when I have to go in to work. But if I did, I'd get a maxed out 11.6" one. The things I wanted: 4GB of RAM and new trackpad, were added. Of course, what would I use it for? Exactly. New Aperture 3.1 update is pretty cool just because it supports multiple Facebook and Flickr accounts. So that's awesome. Just need to get upload Lucy's photos from the last 3 weeks. Headed out for dinner tonight with Russell at Bad Apple. Been a while since our last man date.

Hopefully this illness if finally tailing off. It's been flattening me. I actually had to take a sick day last Friday. And now the last couple days, my sinuses have been quite painful. Very annoying, and actually kind of new for me. Got a cough too which has actually exiled me to sleeping on the couch, so Tracy can get a good night's sleep. So new nephew Rafi was in town this weekend, along with Gabe, Sania, and Ella, so we headed out to the Argaos on Saturday after picking up a pumpkin for carving at Puckerville Farms. There was also Mike and Amy's Baby Shower that night, which I actually missed a good portion of as I tried to put Lucy to sleep. Again, she doesn't do well when there's a party going on. Sunday, came in for dim sum at Phoenix Restaurant with the Tongs, then back to the Argaos, then out to Holiday Inn Matteson for Rafi's Moon Party. And Monday the Argaos and Tongs came over for a family dinner from Gino's East. Kind of crazy with Ella running around, Lucy hanging out, and Rafi too. Ella also gets Lucy to laugh a lot, which is awesome. I have managed to get my mom sick, and Lucy is kind of sick, and Tracy's sick, but she probably got it from the same source I did (Thanks Lisa!), but hopefully didn't get anyone else sick this weekend. In other news, we've started feeding Lucy solids, if you can call rice cereal solid. Ends up she's loving it. Either that or she loves the spoon. Maybe it's the spoon.

So the whole family's sick. Good thing is that Lucy looks like she only has a cold, and not this nasty whatever it is that Tracy and I have. At least I hope she's only got a cold. I actually thought I also had pink eye yesterday, but it seemed to have gone away, maybe mucus drainage from the sinus, or something. But I still took the precautions, and haven't actually given Lucy a kiss since before I left for San Diego. Lucy also has been having some issues getting to sleep the last couple of nights. Last night she went to bed as usual around 7pm, but was up and crying 45 minutes later, and then up and crying till 9pm or so. And then tonight, there was just no going to bed at her previous bedtimes, and she didn't go down until 7:40pm. Of course, hard to tell if it's because of the sickness or something else. Another thing about coming back from San Diego? Came back to fall, at least the leaves changing colors and falling. Not so much with the weather at the beginning of the week, but now, starting to feel like fall. Tried getting chicken noodle soup at Whole Foods earlier this week, but they actually didn't have any. Disappointing. I thought it was one of their staples. Got some via my mom from Melrose Diner and she made some for us today. Been drinking chicken broth, and today started just microwaving water in a measuring cup, and breathing the steam and even drinking plain hot water. It helps.

Back from San Diego. Not really San Diego though. Stayed mostly in La Jolla Shores, then spent the afternoon on Coronado on Saturday. Our hotel for Saturday was the Tower23, pretty fancy, but in a neighborhood that wasn't for us. Too young and drinky. So last Friday, went to Old Town in San Diego, had some good Mexican food, then got back and dressed for the wedding. Turns out I'm related to the groom (Tracy's classmate from pharmacy school), and saw some other relatives from Woodstock there as well. Small world. Very small world. Wedding and reception were fun. Had some traffic issues getting there and a poor directions by me, and getting to an In-and-Out drive through as they closed for the night. Missed it by 2 minutes. Saturday the Cases and grandparents packed up and left, Tracy and I went kayaking (on a tour), finally got some fish tacos. Then headed to our hotel. Walked the boardwalk for a bit, realized it wasn't for us, then drove down to Coronado. That was more our speed. Went on a search for more carpaccio, found 1500 Ocean, but they didn't have any openings that night, and sat at the bar for a couple drinks, and then we realized we could have just eaten in the bar area. But we made reservations at another Italian place, which wasn't that good, and came back for chocolate at Eno. So a pretty good night, except I started feeling under the weather. And then Sunday felt worse, got some room service for breakfast, packed up, then headed home. Made it back too late to pick up Lucy, so I didn't get to see her until I picked her up today. Tracy went over during her lunch to hang out. Just happy she wasn't scared to see us. And 6 days is too long, and she looks a little different, and makes some different sounds. Crazy. And I'm pretty sick, so hoping I don't get her sick.

So dropped off Lucy Wednesday morning for 5 days at grandma's. Missing her. Flew out of Midway, no problems. Guy next to me used his iPad pretty muh the entire time, watched Star Trek and something else, some document editing, some PDF viewing. Interesting to see real world usage. After napping, Tracy and I tried to watchIron Man 2, but me transcode didn't have any audio, so we started Hot Tub Time Machine instead. Used a headphone splitter and my compass stand to watch. Very cool. Arrived no problems, but the security line for the Southwest gates was super long, all the way past the baggage claim. Also, Dollar car rental is sketchy, located right next to a strip club, and our car smelled like vomit, with some questionable stains on the roof. Baby wipes and air freshener seems to have taken care of it. Found the Cases rental house, stone's throw from the beach, hung out for a bit, then headed over to La Jolla for a couples date. Very cool restaurant, George's, with a great view, and good food and drinks. Slept on a pullout in an office. Thursday went to the San Diego Zoo for the day. Pretty cool. Weather turned for the better so got to see the sunset, and tried to take some photos. Might have caught a couple good ones. Definitely overpacked. Only three more days until we get to see Lucy again.

Headed to San Diego tomorrow for a wedding on Friday of one of Tracy's Pharmacy School friends. Crashing at the Cases rental house for a couple days. And leaving Lucy with the grandparents. I think they're going to bring her home to Woodstock and show her off some. And hopefully she'll remember us when we get back. And we don't miss out on anything like first words or steps or crawls or anything. Packed up, hope we don't forget anything. Besides that just working. And besides that, yet related to it, purchased some eBooks from the Amazon Kindle Store because they weren't available from the iBookStore, and just bittorrented the ePub versions. Annoying. Wish I could have just bought them for iBook, but no such luck. Also, hard to believe that iBook used to be a computer I used. Haven't implemented GTD yet, still working through the book again. Also got lots of things I do want to read, and sort of trying the polyreading lifestyle. I think I'm just going to get confused. Bringing the iPad with, so hopefully I'll get some updates in on vacation.

So Lucy's not quite ready for socialization yet. We went to my Ate Joy's wedding this weekend, making it to the ceremony on Saturday afternoon as the flower girls were walking down the aisle. Beautiful ceremony. And congrats to my cousin, and new cousin-in-law. Also got to see some other cousins I hadn't seen for a while, but I was busy trying to keep Lucy from crying, loudly. We grabbed some Wendy's after the ceremony because we were starving, then headed over early to the reception at Dunnhill's. Ended up holding Lucy a little too much probably, and that might be why she was cranky, and maybe the lack of naps as well. She actually fell asleep while being carried twice over the weekend, and it's not something that happens, almost ever anymore. Also, she hates getting changed in public bathrooms. Starts bawling as soon as you enter the bathroom. Not so good. We ended up leaving the reception early, right after the entree at 7pm, since Lucy wasn't too happy. Sunday we went back out for the morning after brunch at Port Edward's, where Lucy was a little happier, enough anyway to get some time with the Abando clan through Grandma. Afterwards did some shopping, mostly to get Tracy a dress for the wedding in San Diego on Friday, and a matching tie for me. So trucking a 5 month old, a fidgety/cranky one at that, all weekend is pretty tiring. But she's so cute it's worth it.