Last numbered entry for the year. Pretty bad for a blog named Daily Dose. 77/366. I even had an extra day this year. Hope your Christmas was nice. Happy New Year too. Hard to believe we're headed to Austin on Saturday for Luke's Baptism and a week long visit. Seriously don't know where the time went. The Shedd Aquarium was fun on Thursday morning. Of course Lucy's favorite part? The playground. Not so much the jellies, or the dolphins, or the fish. 2nd favorite part? The crashing wave at the Amazing Reef exhibit. And then maybe the stingrays at the same exhibit. Everything else, not so much. Oh, and the submarine play area. So yeah, don't think we'll need a membership quite yet. Thought about trying the Museum of Science and Industry on Friday, but it snowed, so let Lucy play in the snow on the roof instead. She likes to play in the snow. Went to Revolucion on Saturday night. Hit up Waffles on Sunday morning. Not bad, but it's new, so has some issues to work through. Spent a lot of time with Lucy over the past 4 days. Got some arts and crafts for her on Saturday, so now she can cut with scissors and paint at home. As for the New Year? Going to try and do some exercising, like everyone else's resolutions. Got the P90X iPhone App while it was available for $.99. So maybe try that out. Was looking forward to some cold weather biking today, but it's actually up above 36° instead. Go figure. Oh, another resolution? Start trying to use Metric instead of Imperial measurements. I think because that's what cyclists do.

Merry Christmas! Tried to do some last minute Christmas shopping for Tracy and our $5 present policy, which proved harder than expected. Went walking on Saturday during Lucy's nap, and biked around on Sunday. Found something, which I guess is better than nothing. Saturday morning hit up Green City Market and the Nature Museum. Surprised Lucy didn't want to go to the playground there. Saturday night went down to Macy's on State Street, to kind of look at the windows, and see what else was up. Busy busy busy. Didn't realize you could just get off at Lake and get there without going outside. Ate at the Frontera Fresco, which was smart enough to be open for dinner. Got some goodies at Magnolia Bakery for dessert. Watched Snow White and the Huntsman after Lucy went to bed. Sunday had breakfast at IHOP then stayed inside after nap time, picked up burgers from Butcher & The Burger. Mine was great, Tracy's and Lucy's had a little too much pepper on theirs. Pretty quiet day at work. Only 5 people in the office. Not a whole lot of people about, and probably headed home soon. Going to church tonight with my parents, who watched Lucy today, and Christmas Eve dinner with them. Headed out to the in-laws for Christmas day, spending the night, taking the train in since I have to work. Thursday going to the Shedd Aquarium in the morning with Lucy and Tracy (working that night). Hopefully Lucy still likes fish. She's recently gone back to Thomas for entertainment. Also, the world didn't end last Friday. So we've got that going for us.

Weened myself off Flipboard as well. Moved a bunch of feeds back into kindling on Fever, so I'm back to doing that. But better than checking a bunch of sites all the time. Haven't touched Twitter or App.net or even Facebook directly in a while. Funny, but not going through any withdrawal symptoms. It's nice. Just a few more steps and I'll be sober. Just rebuilt my work desktop, again. Outlook 2007 emails just wouldn't get indexed anymore. Happened sometime after I uninstalled Outlook 2010, so that had something to do with it. Tried all sorts of stuff, and with my filing scheme (Inbox and Archive), I need search. So, back to scratch. Also decided to start using SkyDrive instead of Dropbox for work related file syncing. Will wait and see how it holds up. Dropbox has been pretty bulletproof, so curious to see. Went to the Market Track holiday party at Rittergut last night. Fun. Didn't realize how much older I am than some people, and how much in common I have with others, in particular an appreciation for cocktails. Very cool. Disappointed with the blizzard last night. I totally could have biked to/from work/party. Oh well. Watched 2012 over the course of the week, you know, in preparation for the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar today. So in case the world ends today, thanks for reading. And if I don't post again before Tuesday, Merry Christmas to all.

Note: don't open a set of bookmarks in Tabs on Safari while typing up a long post, as it will wipe your tab off the face of the planet. Yuck. Anyway, sick again. Flu this time I think. Congestion started last night. Body aches started today. Yay. And to think I just got over something. But at least Lucy's finally healthy, at least it seems she is, finally. Appetite is back for her. Which is nice to see. Probably won't last very long, but still, nice to see. Forgot it was my turn to pick her up yesterday, since I forgot Tracy was working that night, instead of having Wednesday off. Tracy just went and picked her up, while I made my way home. Didn't check my phone until I showed up school wondering where Lucy was. I feel horrible about it, even if Lucy probably didn't even know. But never going to let that happen again. Weather's been a little crazy. Supposed to hit 50 tomorrow. Not sure what I'm supposed to be doing for commuting wear, but I'm getting confused. Haven't quite figured out temperature->outfit coordination.

Really close to being completely happy with my Pacer. Just need a better custom mount for the dual headlights on the Nitto Mark's Rack M1 and to try and clean up the Revolights mounting. Otherwise, I'm good. It's more commuterized, and I wonder how much I'll take off or if I'll just leave the fenders and rack on for long rides when the weather gets better. Lucy stayed home last Friday on a sick day, so I had one too. She was a little out of it at school on Thursday, we think because of lack of sleep. She ended up coming in to sleep with us on Saturday night, and sleeping in until 10:30. Pretty good now, just a residual cough. Sleep schedule's a little off. Friday was in bed by 8pm. Sunday, probably because she missed her nap due to Caden’s birthday party, she wanted to go to bed at 6pm, but managed to drag that out to 7:40ish. Got a Christmas tree on Saturday. Kinda small. Thirsty too. Went grocery shopping the other day for the first time in a long time at Jewel. Just trying out any sorts of foods to see if Lucy would like it. Small individual servings too.

Au Cheval was good. Not great. Rather go to Gilt Bar. Or Publican. I still really like the Publican. After dinner, picked up some beer at Haymarket, and came back to our place, where we played SketchParty TV. It's really cool. It's just pictionary, but using the iPad+Apple TV+AirPlay. Very cool. Then we played a round of celebrity. Wonder if there's an app for that one too. I like the idea of technology enabling social interactions. Also would have been great since all 6 of us had iPhones, although Tracy and I were the only ones with the lowly 4S's. Also flipped through movies, looking for something in the background, and eventually settled on Can't Hardly Wait. So that brought me back. Good to see the Cases and Riveras. The Cases slept over, and we went to Nookies Tree for breakfast/brunch. Then I barely made it to the train station for the 12:30pm out to Woodstock. But then played with my daughter for the afternoon. Played in the yard, running around, and her new toys (play pizza and hamburgers and hotdogs). Took her to get some Hong Kong Chicken at Plum Garden, and lo and behold, Lucy likes it too. Looked around at some old toys since my Dad was cleaning out the toy room in the basement. Lots of stuff there. Came back in on Sunday after brunch at Burnt Toast. Lucy like the corn dogs. Mom took a little spill dropping us off at home. Hope the swelling's gone down. Finally got some personal tasks done, like reimporting of Foursquare to Storytlr again, albeit without the location information. But at least it works. Then got old diary entries imported to Day One. Super easy once I found out they have a cli available. So been reading some historical stuff, which is fun.

December tomorrow. And then before you know it, 2013. If you believe some people, maybe not 2013, and there's only 21-22 days left in the world. Wait and see I guess. So even though I've declared RSS, App.Net, and Twitter, I've started using Flipboard again as almost my sole source of online news, besides when I hit websites to get my fix. But I've moved any kindling sites on Fever into sparks, so no longer have anything to check all that often. Also figured out how to use Fever to see what's hot for a day, so I can check at the end of the day any new hotness items on the web. But still need to tone down my habit. I still check way too much. But I am still plowing through my Instapaper backlog. That's kind of nice. Making a little progress on personal projects. Headed out tonight for a couples date night with the Cases and hopefully the Riveras too. Lucy's in Woodstock with my parents. I'm taking the train out tomorrow to hang out with them before coming back in with them on Sunday. Been dealing with a cold/congestion all week. Hoping the night of revelry doesn't set me back. Also, since we're going to Au Cheval tonight, I didn't bike and took the Brown Line in. That was easy. But I missed biking, that's for sure. But again, after a night of revelry, biking home doesn't seem like a good idea.

So much for the ShowPlace ICON. Next time, which will probably be for Catching Fire next November, we'll just go back to the Muvico. Much nicer. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 was alright, and the twist/change they made? Very well done, and completely fits. I liked it. Definitely added a lot. Actually better than the book. Saturday met with April for breakfast at 2 Sparrows. Ok this time around. I forgot what I had before, but this time I had the pork belly sandwich. Not sure if I had it before. Either way, didn't have to eat lunch. Went to Fox & Obel for dinner and shopping. Tracy's on the lookout for some burrata like she had at Gilt Bar. Sunday went out to a playground, then Noodles & Company, and Lucy kind of threw a tantrum while leaving, so had a screaming/crying child trying to get out of a stroller as we walked down the street. Awesome. Last night met up with the Cases at Rainforest Cafe. And now I understand why places like that exist, and why we'll be going to places like that in the future. Been cold. Didn't realize how cold it was this morning, which I guess is good. Also realize that I need to have a real coat at work. The warmest part of my body on bike rides? My hands thanks to the BarMitts. The coldest? My toes. Definitely need to figure out a better way to keep those warm. Also received another Kickstarter reward, a Supr Slim Wallet. It's actually pretty nice. Now thinking I should have gotten a white one to match my iPhone 4S, iPad and stuff. And besides RSS bankruptcy, I've declared the same for App.net and Twitter. I'm newsless now.

Got laid out by a migraine on Wednesday, Tracy's birthday. She even came down and had lunch at the French Market too. I think it's because of too many buttermilk old fashioned donuts from Do-Rite. Which sucks, because those donuts are awesome. Not sure if I want to experiment to verify, because that headache sucked. Only had it once before, and I think I also had donuts that day. Either way, made it home, went to Whole Foods with Lucy and Tracy, then went to bed. Thanksgiving took Lucy to the pirate playground for an hour, before getting her a hot dog for lunch. Surprised she ate almost the whole thing. After nap and when Tracy got off work, went over to my parents condo for Thanksgiving. Lucy was running on the way over, in a pretty good mood, but got worse as the night went on. Had a little fever, and a running nose all day. She did sleep through the night, so that's good. I got to do some work on the bikes, putting on my BarMitts, new Marathon Supreme tires, and tried evening out the Revolights and mounting the front light on the fender, both of which I failed completing. I also got the fork light mounts on the Xtracycle, Was excited about a 32° ride in this morning, but was a balmy 37° instead. Still, I was sweating in my gloves and BarMitts. They are awesome. And since Lucy didn't have school today, she's hanging out with my parents, who were thinking of taking her out to Woodstock to see the holiday lighting of the Square, but since she's sick, they're sticking around. But Tracy and I made plans for dinner and movie when we thought we would go out tomorrow to get her. We're trying the ShowPlace ICON down on Roosevelt, which is like a Muvico, seeing The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2. Then getting dinner at Gilt Bar. Been a while since we've been there.

Hard to believe it's Thanksgiving already. Part of it is that the weather's been so mild. I'm all excited about cold weather biking, and we did have a week there when I got to break out some gear, but now? A little bit of overkill. Almost getting too hot on the rides in to work. Still only getting a a comment or so a week about the Revolights. Does sound like I'm pretty visible with them. I do wonder how the rear lights look with the fender. On Sunday took Lucy to a couple playgrounds, and then lunch with the grandparents at Soupbox. The ride back was the first one where Lucy cried the whole way home. She started because she wanted to keep eating, even though we went through that process a couple of times. Then she pulled her feet out of the shoes which were strapped in. Then on the way home she was crying because she wanted a kleenex to wipe her tears. Then she cried because she wanted to give me the kleenex. Then she cried because she wanted a kleenex again. Then she cried because she wanted to put her shoes on. So that was me, riding up Halsted, with a crying baby in a plastic weather shield on the back of an Xtracycle. Good times. Finally got a haircut too. Needed it. Picked up dinner Sunday night from Mia Francesca. Took maybe 40 minutes from calling in the order to putting it on the table after picking it up on my bike. So easy. Tracy's working Thanksgiving, so my parents are having it at their condo.

Flatted. Again. Monday night, came out to ride home, hopped on, rode a block, realized my rear tire was flat. Ended up digging a little piece of glass out of the tire. Was the final straw to get some puncture resistant tires. My Marathon Pluss are too tall to fit under the fenders, so I'm on the lookout for something else. Going to try out some Marathon Supremes. Hoping they fit. Also loving the hood on my Mountain Hardwear Transition Jacket. Covers up like a balaclava and it's windproof. I stay pretty warm when I scuba up like that. Even if it looks pretty dorky. Couple weeks ago got a pair of Bogs Hawthornes for winter riding. Work pretty well, except that I need to stiffen up the soles a little bit. Monday morning it was below freezing, so bundle up with armwarmers, long johns, and neoprene socks. Was pretty warm.

I declared RSS bankruptcy last week. Was spending too much time just trying to stay current, that I myself was no longer current. As in I was doing too much reading, and not enough doing. Next step is to curtail Facebook, Twitter, and App.net reading. Maybe once or twice a day. I've already moved the apps off my iOS home screens. Been able to start going through my Instapaper backlog too. Which is nice. Had stuff in there from August 2011. Yikes. Also feel more inclined to write, via Day One. Hoping this keeps up. Want to start plowing through some personal projects. Found out back catalog of Ludlum is available as eBooks. Bought a couple off iBooks, but just last night found out that I can no longer strip out the DRM, which means I can't, if I wanted to, put them on my Kindle. Which is annoying. And considering my reduced online info consumption, means I might look into a Paperwhite sooner rather than later. But I'll be switching to FeedBooks instead for purchasing. Just annoying for the steps to take to get into iBooks. DRM+Ease of use vs. any device+hassle. If only I could put iBooks on some sort of e-Ink device. Probably means I'll repurchase the first 2 Ludlum books so they will be available. Last last weekend went to the French Fall Market in Lucy's school building. A Lycée Français de Chicago fundraiser. Interesting. It was in the school, so kind of cramped. After nap went up to Northbrook Court. Got to handle an iPad mini. Want one, but can hold off until they go Retina. Didn't think the size made sense, but then I handled it, and it's perfect. And I do agree that it's probably what the iPad was supposed to be. Voted on Tuesday. Finally got my Pizza Hut Super Supreme pan pizza on Friday. Gone by Saturday morning. Sad that Lucy didn't seem to like it. Hit up the indoor Green City Market this past Saturday for the first time this season, when it was unreasonably warm. Successfully used Dark Skies to get home before the rain. Lucy had a little bit of a fever, but was fine by Sunday, when we went to Oakbrook Court. I got to play with a Surface at a Microsoft Store. Got the touch UI to crash by trying to rotate the device. Otherwise, interesting. I don't understand the 16:9/9:16 screen ratio. Maybe I'm just used to the iPad 4:3/3:4. Maybe because I mostly use mine in portrait. Also finally threw out the broken coffee/espresso machines and got an Aeropress. Made a cup last night, and it was good. Not amazing, but then again I sometimes like gas station coffee/cappuccinos. Also saw a dodocase at the J.Crew. Would be great if I ever carried around my iPad all by itself, and not in a bag.

Couple of things. I have 3 invites to Simple to give out. Let me know if you want to try it out. It's nice, used it for a month for food purchases, but don't feel like moving all my payment/deposits around right now, and I like my iTunes Card enough to deal with the non Simple interface. Second bit: a Pizza Hut opened up relative close to where I live again. So been waiting for a chance to get it, and hoping lunch on Sunday will be it. Looking forward to a medium pan Supreme. Didn't see a line at the Lincoln Park Apple Store for the iPad mini release day today. It was kind of cold, but interesting nonetheless. Have to hold myself back for the hopefully future Retina one in the future. Maybe at some point I'll do a whole hog replacement to get rid of 30pin dock iOS devices.

More bike stuff: Spent some time last Sunday working on the Xtracycle after having breakfast with my parents with Lucy and then dropping her off with them for the day. Replaced the front tube, tried to fix the front rack a little, and replaced the weather shield frame with PEX tubing. Probably should have gone with rigid PVC pipe instead. Maybe next weekend. On Saturday morning we drove down to Green City Market. Had brunch at Delightful Pastries. Made a ship out of the Bob in coordination with our Halloween costumes. Was able to attach the Bob to the Xtracycle using the bike mount from earlier, and rode down to Pumpkins in the Park. Arrived too late and missed Lucy's race, so instead we played in the leaves for a bit, before we could finally go on our 5K, as a family of pirates. Managed to do ok, in boots, in costume, with no prep work. Picked up Soupbox on the way home. Friday night stopped and picked up a pirate shirt from Beatnix. The previous weekend went out to Woodstock on Saturday via Metra with Lucy, and Tracy drove out after work. Sunday went to Edward's Apple Orchard, which was ok. Didn't actually go apple picking, just played on the playground, looked at some stuff, went on a wagon ride. Driving back in we got a pirate costume for Lucy, and fabric so Tracy could make the rest of our costumes. Worked out pretty well I think. Also while I was out in Woodstock upgraded my dad's iMac to Mountain Lion. Couldn't get the update to download and install because it kept timing out. I think it's my DSL->Time Machine->iMac hackery to allow Remote Desktop that causing the issues. Annoying.

Balance. So had my seat stolen off my Sprint on Monday. Reported it to the building, since they have surveillance cameras. Not sure if anything will come of it. It was a Brooks B17. And I've been asking for it, since the seat post was on a quick release. My bad. But all this time, and never been taken, until, finally, I took off the front and rear rack, and that day it's gone. Go figure. Rode home standing up, which was a lot more tiring and annoying. Went and picked up my Surly Pacer from Roscoe Village Bikes, dropped off a sixer of Fat Tire as thanks, and brought it home. Decided to go whole hog and finally put the Revolights on, and tried switching over my Marathon Plus tires from the Sprint over, but they ended up being too big, and wouldn't fit under the fenders. So that took a while, getting tires on and off, putting the Revolights on, putting the tires back. But all set and it works. Haven't had a chance to actually try them, but I will tonight, since it's raining. Looking forward to it. My previously sleek Pacer is now fairly commuted up. Hasn't slowed me down too much, which what I was afraid of with the fenders. Doesn't make any more noise than before either, so hats off to RVB and professional fender installation. Also got the rest of my bike stuff, so my custom Market Track jersey and additional jersey, wool hat, and toe clip covers. I think I'm all set and ready now until next year, bike-wise.

Setup the weather shield for Lucy on the Xtracycle. Thank you duct tape. And you too random pieces of wood and metal railing pieces. Yeah, I need to come up with something a little less janky. Would be nice also if I knew how to sew and could put a zipper in the side to make it much easier to get Lucy in and out. Also finally got her some mittens this weekend. Would be really nice if I could find/make her a muff to put her hands in while she's riding. And maybe some not clip shields for her feet, although we did get her some Bogs this weekend (last year's on sale clearance). We made the mistake of telling her she can splish, splash, sploosh in them, which she proceeded to do in any puddle she could find. Including the fountain next to the Lincoln Park Apple Store. We went there Sunday morning because the power/sleep/wake button on Tracy's iPhone failed. And they won't have a replacement available for 9 days. Crazy. Finally brought the Pacer in to get fenders installed this weekend. Won't get a chance to pick it up until tonight, so had to ride the Sprint in again today. Took off the front cetma rack and put that on the Xtracycle, and took off the Tubus Cargo as well, since I'm rocking the Carradice Barley. And you know what? Without that extra weight it's actually a little spritely. Hmmmm. Finally watched The Avengers Saturday night. Finally. One of these days will have to watch all the connected movies in order.

Rough weekend with Lucy. She's been itching a lot at night, and Saturday night might have eaten something bad, kind of coughing/retching a couple times. But meant for not a whole lot of sleep. That and the working thing too. Saturday morning went to watch Tracy spar before hitting up a playground. Lucy had a little blueberry muffin from Caribou Coffee, which might not have agreed with her belly. She didn't play a whole lot on the playground that day. I, on the other hand, had a pretty good banger/rasher sandwich from a place at the French Market on Melrose and Broadway. Tracy had to go to Indiana for work, so after Lucy's nap we went to the playground at the Inter American school, she seemed much better at that point. Then I got food/snacks/fruit/cookies from Whole Foods and dinner from Taco Burrito Palace, and one of those didn't agree with Lucy's belly. So that night she ended up in our bed. I tried watching Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, but my rip/transcode was off, so just watched an episode of Fringe instead. Sunday spent the morning in, but naptime went to a couple playgrounds down Racine, the ship based one at Supera Park and another at Trebes Park before dinner at John's Place, which is very kid friendly, as evidenced by the kids in all the bar seats when we walked in, as well as the magician who works 5-7:30pm on Sundays. Food was ok, but might be worth it to come back. Hoping she sleeps better tonight. I decided to switch to a lock screen on my iPhone/iPad based on the OS X login screens. Although I might switch it back to the iOS initial setup screens. We'll see. Also brought the old 3GS's out and setup as iPod touches for Lucy. Comes in handy when out at dinner. Really need to setup the cold weather shield for the Xtracycle. Had to drive Lucy to school this morning since I didn't have it ready. So much easier just biking her there.

Using Simple for food. Interesting. Wait and see how it'll be. Been watching Apple stock take a tumble. It hit $700 2 weeks ago and dropped $50 or so since then. Strange. Even after a successful iPhone 5 launch. Is Maps really that big of an issue? Realized that my paying for App.net is like paying for a premium channel on cable. But odd having to check 2 roughly equivalent services. And of course I just read both, don't really post to either. Hoping I can get out and drop the Pacer off to get fenders installed this weekend. Also got some swrve shorts and pants. Wore the pants, the lightweight WWR. They are awesome. A little loose at the waist, which probably means I should just eat more junk food. Because a 33 would be perfect, but they only have a 34 or a 32. But seriously, super comfy, great on the bike. Hoping I wouldn't have to use a trouser strap, but looks like I do. And of course, want to get more. Especially now that it's cold out. Not sure what I'm going to do about the shoe situation though. But I should be good for everything else. Oh, maybe some base layers would be good. But enough spending for October.

Rode the Sprint in to work today because I still haven't gotten the fenders put on the Pacer. And the Pacer still needs a name. Slow going, but nice to be upright. Lots of construction down Halsted, so on the way back home took my old route up Orleans. Not very fast. I wonder what other routes I could take home? Maybe tomorrow, err, today, I'll take my super old route down Lincoln to Wells. I was amazed at the difference in efficiency from just foot placement on pedals. I'm now down with my half toe clips and want full toe clips with straps now. Otherwise, not sleeping enough, working in that odd window post Lucy bedtime. So my home working time doesn't really start until after 9pm. Crazy. But getting some things done, so that's good. Actually crossing things off lists, which always feels nice. With Netbot's release I'm now actively checking App.net. And if they end up releasing an Netbot for Mac? Well game on. I was never into IRC, but from what I know of it, kind of seems like Twitter and App.net are kind of like IRC. Maybe it's just the hashtags. But sort of group public view chatting? Maybe moreso App.net. Oh, also got my Simple card today. All activated. Excited to start using it. Mostly for food to start. Then we'll see.

Got my invite to Simple last week. Waiting for my card to come in. Wondering if I should move to that full time, and instead of using a credit card, move to a debit card? But would have much better control over my spending. But then I lose, what I think, is free money through my iTunes Rewards program. But I'm paying for it with a crappy interface. It's intriguing, that's for sure. Just annoying because I see Tracy's Discover transactions show up almost real time in Mint, while my Barclay Card transactions show up in a batch days later. Maybe I'll just do lunch via Simple for a while, and then gradually move other things over. But that would entail reconfiguring direct deposits. Ugh. Involves some calculations. But probably best for me. Need to curtail my spending, although I think I'm done buying bike stuff for a long time. I should be set. Hopefully. Of course, winter's coming, and I think I have enough cold weather gear, but who knows if I need studded tires or not. Actually having a tough time dressing properly for the commute, either too cold like yesterday or too warm like this morning. Going to have to start packing leg sleeves, although, maybe I should get some knee warmers instead?

Quads have felt sore all week. Didn't really start going slower on the bike until Wednesday heading home. Or maybe it was Thursday morning heading in. Got a couple more pieces for my biking gear/apparel/stuff. I think the only thing I have left is maybe some commuting shorts/pants. And maybe some knee warmers. I'm beginning to realize the benefits of knickers though. But not sure if I can go ahead and make the leap and buy some, instead of just rolling up my pant legs. We'll see. I'm already a convert to chamois and bibs and jerseys, especially jersey pockets. Those are amazing. I did get my Revolights this week, although I have yet to put them on. Maybe this weekend. Also have to put the fenders on. Don't think I can put kick stand on it, but I'll have to try it out to see. Started watching Fringe. Not really all that excited about the new fall TV season. Kind of tired of broadcast/serial shows. Much easier to just plow through seasons on Netflix or purchased seasons from iTunes.

I guess I am a real biker. Err, cyclist. Whatever. Busy long weekend. Went to Chula Vista in the Wisconsin Dells with my parents on Wednesday night-Friday morning. They wanted to bring Lucy to the indoor water park, and she had a blast. So thanks to the parents. Drive up was uneventful. Surprised at how I only had an Edge signal well into Wisconsin. That made things interesting when I rely on it for navigation. But was able to get there eventually. I did manage to update my iPhone 4S to iOS 6 that day, and had no problems with the Maps app. Waterpark was fun, if a little cold. Lucy could only really go for about an hour or so before her lips started turning blue. Probably shouldn't have put her on one of the bigger water slides on the big adult playground part, but she loved the toddler pool and slide. Also spent a lot of time in the lazy river part too, since that had the warmest water. She actually had a nap time on Thursday, and then went for more waterpark time, then some arcade action (my mom had a voucher for free tokens). Then my parents were nicer and took care of Lucy while Tracy and I had a nice dinner at Kaminski Bros. Chop House, which was really good, with ginormous portions. And even nicer, they took Lucy home with them Friday after lunch at Buffalo Phil's Pizza & Grill, which served food via trains. Friday night Tracy and I barely made it home in time to make it to reservations at Maude's Liquor Bar. Tracy really like the cassoulet there. Saturday went to IHOP for breakfast, then I got a Yakima Boa bike rack system for the Xtracycle and went to The Pony Shop to pick up Russell's bike and truck it down to Wicker Park. That was fun, and awesome. And another great use of the Xtracycle. Carbo loaded with food from Pasta Palazzo. Sunday did 62 miles of the North Shore Century with Russell, Bjorn, Hales, and Chuck. First group ride, and tons of fun. Felt great up until I had to do the 8 mile ride home from Evanston. Picked up a little snack from White Castle on the way home. Then met up with the guys for dinner at Lillie Q's, before finishing up the football game at Bjorn, Carlo, Akira and other's place where Russell was staying. Good times. Pretty tired still though. Happy with my bike, and the recovery ride down the Lake Front Path this morning. Except that it was cold out.

Am I a real bike rider now? I did a short run up Sheridan road on Saturday afternoon. I think that might make me a roadie. Or wannabe roadie. Oh well. I'm slightly older schooled, no lycra, instead wool, no clipless, instead cages, a bigger Carradice saddlebag. Only 27 miles or so, just a 2 hour scouting trip during Lucy's nap, to find out how to get to Dawes Park for the North Shore Century on Sunday with Russell and crew. Excited. Doing at least 50 miles, plus the 7 or so to get there each way. Hoping it turns out well and I find myself in Wisconsin at some point. Would make me happy. Bought a real helmet on Sunday out at REI. And gloves. Forgot about water bottles, so ordered those online today. Yeah, going a little overboard with everything, but seriously, at least 2 hour bike rides on the weekends are in store for me at least from here on out. Went to Roti for dinner after a playground visit after REI. Sunday morning went to 2 Sparrows finally with my parents. Good, but Lucy didn't stay seated for the meal, so couldn't really eat. I thought the pop tarts and donuts and cinnamon rolls were good. Too much food though. Saturday went to Green City Market as usual and that afternoon went to Chipotle Cultivate festival, where we had too spicy food. Ended up at Adobo Grill for dinner. Really looking forward to the open road this weekend.

So Apple announced the iPhone 5 yesterday, at It's almost here (September 12, 2012) Apple Event. As usual, I did a pseudo live blog for myself. I think I'm resigned to the fact that I'm on the off year upgrade schedule, as I checked and Tracy and I aren't eligible for upgrade pricing until May, and our contract actually runs until October. But more and more I'm thinking we should switch to Verizon. Getting tired of not being able to use things because AT&T won't let us. For example, I'm still waiting on Hot Spot Tethering to my iPad with LTE. Would be much more useful if it could. Would be looking forward to FaceTimeing over cellular with iOS 6 in a week, but that's not going to happen without switching data plans. Also tired of not actually having data service with my iPhone 4S at various times in downtown Chicago. So maybe in a year we'll be switching providers. Or, maybe, in a year, there'll be a better/simpler data provider for mobile devices. Sure would be nice. Anyway, things I like about the iPhone 5? LTE, 802.11n 5GHz. Yeah, that's about it. Panorama and Share Photo Streams I get with iOS 6 next week. New iPod Touches look cool. Not sure what for, since I have an iPhone, but still cool. I do like how Apple had the website up and running with info after the event, not like Amazon's kindle event last week, where after the event I kept seeing old Kindle's and Fire's. Disappointed they didn't name it the new iPhone.

I really need to get foursquare Storytlr integration working again. Hard to figure out what I've been doing since my last update. Got more goodies for my Surly Pacer. Put the Brooks leather handlebar tape on Friday night. Tried out the Berthoud Stainless Steel fenders, but I think I should get the bike shop to install those. Still trying to figure out how to do a quick release on the Carradice Barley. Got a nice leather shoulder strap to somewhat match the bag. Better than a black nylon one. Really really want to get out on a long ride with it soon, hopefully before the North Shore Century in a couple weeks. Would be a smart move I think. Green City Market on Saturday before hitting up the Lakeview East Festival of the Arts with their awesome park on Broadway right around Roscoe. They had a bunch of sod covered berms, as well as a couple sandboxes, which Lucy got to play in. Tracy worked at COEP Saturday night, so Lucy and I hit up some more playgrounds after her nap, and ran into Nathan Pavlik with his wife and kid at one. Small world. More playgrounds on Sunday, but since Tracy worked from home, went to the Nettlehorst playground through the Arts Festival again on the way to Frog N Snail for dinner. Finally got some shaving gel, as I was going on 2+ days past my shaving schedule. I actually saw a gray whisker growing. I'm an old man.

Busy weekend. Out to Homer Glen on Friday night, hung out with the families, then Saturday morning left Lucy with the grandparents-in-law and Rafi and Ella and did the Hell Run with Sania, Gabe and Tracy. A little different since it took place at a equine race track. But lots of mud pits, or giant mud puddles to do cannonballs into. Gabe and Sania were smart enough to get a couple disposable waterproof cameras to use, although we lost one and the pictures from the other one didn't turn out that well. But first time running in who knows how long. Ends up biking didn't prepare myself for any sort of non biking physical activity. Ended up being sore for 3 days. That full body, post first ultimate tourney, soreness. Where it's sore when you're breathing. Then after that, went to McDonald's for lunch and met up with the kids and grandparents, enjoying the Playland. Then had to clean up for rehearsal, then dinner at Wishbone. Then home. Then out to breakfast and playground before nap and heading out for the wedding and some practice time for Lucy to walk down the aisle as a flower girl. Bribed with fruit treats at the end of the aisle, and all that practice worked. No crying when she did walk it with Ella. Then watching the kids play during the ceremony, then photos, then reception. A very late night for Lucy, not in bed until 10:30pm. Monday stayed in since Lucy was running a fever, and ended up staying home with her yesterday since she still had a fever, and we can't send her to school with a fever. But she's better today and back at school. Rode the Sprint in today, since I don't have fenders yet for the Pacer. Just ordered though. Slower going, but much more relaxing.

Ok, I love my Surly Pacer. Also love my Carradice Barley saddlebag. I've wanted one for a long time, and now that I had it for 1 ride? Should have switched to it a long time ago. I just need to configure it with an easier/faster attachment system. Especially since I'll be switching to the Pacer full time. I don't think I can go back to my Sprint, so I'll be putting that bike out to pasture. We'll see if any places will take it as a donation. However, today I took the bus in to work. Can't remember the last time I didn't ride in. Crazy. I was looking forward to it because I got to do some more reading. Taking the train out to Lemont, since Gabe and family's in town for Rachel and Julio's wedding. Also, Gabe, Sania, Tracy and I are doing the Hell Run tomorrow morning. Haven't trained at all for it. Should be interesting, and muddy. And tiring. Signed up officially for the North Shore Century, even though I haven't done a ride longer than 7 consecutive miles yet. Might only do 50 of those miles, but we'll see. Tracy just plowed through the first 2 seasons of Downton Abbey this week. I'll admin, it's addicting. So weird, and I have to imagine Masterpiece Theater never imagined it would be this popular. I mean, it's Masterpiece Theater.

Networking problems at home, so that's why the websites were unavailable for an unspecified amount of time. Makes me wonder if I should look into Amazon's EC2 again. Somewhere between $10-15 a month, just for an instance, still have to look into persistent storage. But then at least I'd know it'd be up more reliably, without me screwing up with hardware or stuff. Hmm, maybe when I magically have more time. Rode into work this morning for the first time on my Surly Pacer. Absolutely awesome. Rides like a dream, I shoot out like a rocket, and shaved 5 minutes off my commute. About a minute a mile. And I wonder if I could drop that even further. Also riding in my Vittoria 1976 Classic cycling shoes. Bought on a whim, because they were so cheap, but not in my exact size, but pretty close, I contemplated returning them or not, but decided to eat the cost if they don't work. They seem a little small, but fit like a glove. If anything, reminds me of trying to find cleats to wear for Ultimate. I could buy a pair a size up, and have all that extra space, squeeze into the right size, or spend years trying to find the magic pair that fit perfectly (Kelme for cleats). I'll keep looking, but in the meantime, these will do. And riding in today, hardly noticed them at all. Do have to figure out a better commuting setup though, as the sweaty back from messenger/backpack just won't do.

Another beach trip on Saturday. More swimming and playing in the sand with Lucy. After nap, another trip out to a playground with some sprinklers, before picking up dinner from Pasta Palazzo. Sunday drove out to Woodstock with Lucy, but felt bad for her since she couldn't play outside because it rained all day. Took me way to long to get my dad's DSL back up and running. While following directions to try and set up the 2Wire as a dumb bridge, actually wiped out the DSL password, and the one I had written down wasn't working. Then I tried to allow the automated system to download the tools to update the password, but those weren't working under Lion. So then tried to do it online, but didn't follow directions, so wasted some time there, until I followed directions, and tried to get it changed, but didn't realize I had the wrong last four SSN digits for the account owner, so ended up locking the account, before I just gave up and called into tech support, which then forwarded me after waiting, to an automated line for resetting the DSL password. And then it worked. Then I tried doing a backup, but would have been too slow over USB, so gave up on the nuke and pave to Mountain Lion. But I was able to set it up so I can again do remote troubleshooting through Remote Desktop from home. So that's good. Way too long for something that should have been really really simple. Good portion I have only myself to blame. Oh the way back, dropped by H Mart, but disappointed again because they didn't have the sweet corn popsicles like last time. Not a bad weekend, but that Sunday was just frustrating. Too much time in the car too.

I now have 3 bikes in the garage, my Sprint, the Xtracycle, and now the Surly Pacer. Had to reorganize some stuff, but the Pacer now sits under the shelf, besides the Xtracycle. Might put it up on hooks, we'll see. Can't wait to take it out for a spin though. Still waiting on the bar tape though. Still backordered. Cashed out some $AAPL. A limit sell order placed last Thursday executed first thing Monday morning. Didn't think it would hit that, but then it did and blew right by it. Crazy. Don't remember if that happened the last time I sold some as well. In somewhat related news, upgraded the iMac to an SSD and finally upgraded to Mountain Lion. So I'm all Mountain Lioned up. It's nice. And somewhat related news to that, finally upgraded my work desktop to Windows 7x64. Seriously, I was still running XP. Finally figured out how to run XP Mode though. Because I still have to do some development in VB6. Seriously. My dad had some home networking issues, so I'll be headed out to Woodstock on Sunday with Lucy to spend the day. I'll fix the computer stuff, and Lucy will get to play in a yard. Just realized I should probably upgrade my dad's iMac to Mountain Lion too. No nuke and pave, unless I bring home a backup disk, which I might just do.

Interesting number always. Kind of caught up on sleep. So that's good. Weather's taken an interesting turn, much cooler and wet. I guess the rain's a little late to help with the drought/crops this year. Hoping it helps though. Set up Gallery on the webserver to host my nephew's photos. Took a little while to get it all configured, but I think it's all set up. Requires a username/password to view. Checking out an iOS app and will check out iPhoto export plugins as well later. Still don't have my Surly Pacer. Bar tape was back ordered. Pretty used to my toe clips and straps though. Do need to find some biking shoes, like old school Italian leather ones with stiff soles. Since I am kind of going all old school with it. Hung out with my dad yesterday. Went to an IHOP, which, as snobby as I might be in terms of food, was pretty good, and I'd go again. I really liked their hash browns.

Been watching the Olympics, kind of, when Tracy watches after Lucy goes to bed. So while I'm trying to do some work, it's slow going, getting distracted, and then really start working it's already late, so right now working on a pretty big sleep deficit again. Really need to get to bed tonight. Got my other bike related stuff over the weekend. Will try and switch over to my pedals and cages to get used to them before the Surly Pacer comes home. Foursquare might have changed something on the API/rss side, but my personal storytlr isn't picking up updates anymore. Maybe I need to actually write a real plugin. With all that free time I have. Saturday went down to Ohio St. Beach with the family. Lucy loves her beach time. After lunch went out to Minooka to see the Cases, got stuck inside due to a storm, but after dinner got a little pool time in. Lucy's got a Swimways Power Swimr setup so she can try swimming, but we haven't quite figured out how it keeps her head above water yet. Still working on that. Good to see the Cases too. Sunday's big plan was to go to H Mart. Ended up at Northbrook for a little bit, then checked out an open house in Northfield that's probably way out of our price range, then finally to H Mart where I got my dream popsicles, sweet corn. They're awesome, and I'm going to try and give one to Lucy tonight.

I have no idea why it took me so long to get a real bike. Finally made it to Roscoe Village Bikes last night, got to see my new Surly Pacer all done up. Looks great. Blue isn't as sparkly or as bright as I thought it'd be, much more subdued. Took it out for a test ride. Picking it up off the sidewalk I was amazed at it's weight. It's a steel bike too. And it's so much lighter than my current tank. Riding it, well, it's smooth, quick and nimble. Super easy to put the hammer down and shoot off like a rocket. Any of my worries that it wasn't my bike slowing me down, and it's actually me that's slow, well, that's put to rest. I can't wait to get it one some real roads/trails to open it up. But, it'll be another week or so as I'm getting new saddle/bar tape, going with a nice Brooks Swift in Honey Brown with matching bar tape. Ordered up some pedals/clips/straps. Going old school. Need to find some old school cycling shoes. This could be a very slippery slope into riding. It will take me a little bit to get used to a drop bar and aggressive road position again. Definitely not a city bike.

Finally did a nuke and pave on the Mac mini last night. Also finally set up a home server the right way, as far as I can tell, and joined the MacBook Air to it, and now have a portable home directory that will sync to the server occasionally. Next up is to see what happens when I upgrade and join the iMac to it and log in with the same account. Or how it handles syncing of portable home directories when logged in on multiple machines. Hopefully nothing catastrophically bad. But had to create a separate account for the local server since that's running all the time and running server specific apps all the time, like SecuritySpy and iTunes. But so far so good. Of course, ended up staying up way too late working on it. Issue right now is certificate based on enrolling my iPad so I can do stuff like lock/wipe from the server. Definitely going today to Roscoe Village Bikes to check out the Surly Pacer finally. Probably will get plain platform pedals, and thinking of just ordering new seat/handlebar tape so they can do it instead of me. Still fighting some kind of gastrointenstinal illness, but appetite is coming back, which is a good and bad thing, considering. Just found out Hulu Plus is available for the Apple TV, so I reactivated my account so I can check it out. Wonder how close we can be to cutting the cord for cable TV.

Nephew! Yup, I've got one. Luke Basa Abando, 5 lbs, 9 oz at 5:09am on 7/29/2012. 4 weeks early but everyone's doing well. Can't wait to meet him. So my brother and sister-in-law had a pretty eventful weekend. Kind puts anything I did to shame. Tried to go look at my Surly Pacer on Friday night on my way home, since Tracy sprained her wrist boxing and actually took the night off, but forgot to check the hours on Roscoe Village Bikes and they closed at 6pm on Friday. Rightfully so, since it was a pretty nice night. I also like that ride up Lincoln. Something very old cityish about it. Lots of retail maybe? Instead got the websites up and running off the old Apple TVs. Yup, this site right now is being served off an Apple TV. Crazy? A little. Now just have to find the time to do a nuke and pave on the Mac mini. Saturday spent the day with Lucy since Tracy went to Indiana for work. Biked down to Green City Market, met up with Amy and Caden, checked out the Farm at the Zoo, got some more soup and some icy fruit at Soupbox. After Tracy got back went to Rachel and Julio's wedding shower. I started feeling ill (like a flu), even though I've started taking 1000 mg of vitamin C as suggested by my Mom, who I think picked it up from my brother. Found out about Luke. My dad came in to the city after dropping my mom at the airport, we had breakfast at Lulu Belle's Pancake House, then hung out for a bit before leaving Lucy with Grandpa while Tracy and I went to see How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular. We made plans before we found out the 2nd grandchild was coming early. Show was interesting. Different than the movie. Lots of kids there. Don't think Lucy could have made it through. Still feeling ill, missing out on dinner tonight with the Cases and extended friends, but Tracy's going to represent.

Still haven't picked up my Surly Pacer. I'll try and get out there this weekend and pick it up. Looking forward to it. Although I did finally do some fixes to my Sprint and it's running pretty smoothly right now. Moved the toe clips in, seat up angle isn't so high anymore, reattached a pedal, greased the front rack, and now everything's good. Had Lucy for the night yesterday when Tracy was working and they were tie-dying at school today, so went around looking for a plain white t-shirt. Ended up with some Puma shirt from T.J. Maxx. Had to go back after Lucy's bedtime to get the security tag removed, and ended up at Soupbox for some fruit ice. So good. Got my old Apple TVs up and running as webservers. They do run a little hot, and while tempted, I'm not going to buy some cheap SSDs, well, I'm not planning on putting SSDs in. Just need to get my websites running on one, then setup rsync and mysql replication, some backup scripts, and then switch the routing to one of them, and then I can start the Mountain Lion nuke and pave. Did the MacBook Air last night. Since I'll be switching to network accounts, the Air is just a vanilla install, no apps, no service accounts set up. Seems ok.

My Surly Pacer is ready at Roscoe Village Bikes. Not sure when I'll be able to head over there to pick it up. Not sure when I'll be able to put more hooks in the garage ceiling for a place to hang it up. Probably should do that stuff before picking it up. Also, not sure if I want to walk over and take it home by riding it or ride the Xtracycle over and take it home by hauling it. Hmmm, choices. I'll stick some old pedals on it for now, since I haven't had a chance to go looking for clipless shoes. Started reading the Dragonlance Chronicles again. Forgot how enjoyable those books are. And how easy it is to start and stop with the short episodic chapters, almost like little adventures. I love thinking of it as a D&D campaign, with people actually playing the characters, and really building their stories. It's fun. Lucy's currently all about Cars, the Pixar movie. She loves it. Just got the sequel yesterday, and Cars 2, well, doesn't seem as good. Kind of a let down. Maybe it'll get better with a complete viewing, instead of bits here and there. Mountain Lion gets released tomorrow. As soon as I find out if Parallels is compatible, I'll start reloading my machines. Want to actually use Mac OS X Server for something and try workgroup accounts and stuff. We'll see. Also want to finally get an SSD from Other World Computing for the iMac to replace the non functioning SuperDrive, but might wait until August for that purchase. Thinking about nuke and pave the Mac mini, and might try moving the web serving over one of the old Apple TVs I have. Actually, if I use both, I could have a production and development one. Maybe learn about MySQL replication. Interesting.

Ordered a new bike the other day. A Surly Pacer. I have a strange feeling that this is the beginning of a descent into biking obsession. Even more so than now. We'll wait and see. Need to find clip less shoes and pedals. And some sort of kit. And water bottles. And yes, it's just the beginning. Maybe a saddle bag. And a new saddle. And now I'm in trouble with Tracy, because I'll have 3 bikes in the garage. And maybe I need to get rid of the Sprint, but I like having a bike I can beat up on the city streets, to commute on, and not have to really worry about. So, I need to find a place to put the new bike, maybe somewhere on the wall, or just hang it up somewhere on the ceiling. I don't know but I'll find a spot for it. And I'll clean out the garage while I'm at it. Maybe find a spot for the BoB stroller. Last night around 6pm Lucy was watching Thomas & Friends, when it stopped. Turns out Comcast had an outage. No internet. No TV. Ok. Eventually comes back maybe an hour later. Then around 8pm, I hear a loud boom, and the power cuts out. I head out on the back deck, and see neighbors doing the same, and notice a couple of the transformers on the utility poles down the alley is all discolored, like they boiled over. Awesome. So with no before bed TV show for Lucy, and no AC, we head up to the roof to hang out in the dimming light of day, and read some books. And, surprisingly, after Tracy gets home from boxing class, Lucy wants to go to bed right around her usual time. And she pretty much sleeps through the night. Tracy and I on the other hand have trouble sleeping without the AC. Even through we were in bed before 10pm, still didn't get that much sleep. They had 3 ComEd trucks working in the alley, and around 2:15am they got the power turned on. And Tracy was smart enough to flip the light switch in Lucy's room so they didn't turn on again. So that was exciting. Funny thing? Our next door neighbor to the north had power. The next building over. Funny. But also got me thinking, about the whole apocalypse, end of the world. What if this had been the beginning of the end. First internet/tv, then power. Next thing would have been cell service, but we still had that and I could still read Twitter and my RSS Feeds. But at what point would it be beyond a simple service outage and something bigger? Anyway, it wasn't, and now back to normal.

You know what's cool? Magnets. Ordered up some rare earth magnets from Amazon.com, and finally hung up my cardboard airflow redirector for the A/C up to the upper stairs with them. Much better than painters tape, and completely temporary. Magnets for the win! Also finally used a bit of old bike tube to stop the rattling of my Abus Bordo 6000 folding lock on the Sprint, and finally greased up the cetma rack. So that doesn't creak. Other stuff still does, so still working on that. Gabe and family is in town, so saw them for dim sum and playground on Sunday. Heat broke, so much nicer out. Went to Ohio Street Beach on Saturday morning. Aside from the trash in the water, it's awesome. Shallow enough that Lucy can play a lot in the water, not too busy in the morning. There is the triathlon trainers that take up all the bike rack spaces, but there's plenty of fence available. Also tried out the Oak Street Beach Food & Drink for lunch. Expensive, of course, but the tacos were pretty good. Missed out on Lucy's nape, so went shopping, looking for a beach umbrella, and she got some car sleep in instead. Ended up at The Glen and Ted's Montana Grill for dinner. Sunday walked over to Tapas Gitana for dinner, which was good and nice. Tracy's taking Lucy out to Homer Glen after daycare today, so I'm on my own for tonight. Started up season 5 of Eureka. Good stuff. Sad it's over.

Actually took the L home last night, and will be taking it in to work this morning. My immediate boss is in town for a couple days, so went out to dinner with him. That was nice. Finally got to South Branch. Nice place. And since he was coming, had to do some cleanup in the office on Tuesday before the holiday. Much needed and long overdue. Of course, there's still a bunch of other things I still need to take care of. On July Fourth, Tracy was working and had to go in to the office, so I had a nice day with Lucy. We went to the beach for a couple hours in the morning, and even though it was over 100 degrees outside, had Soupbox for lunch. Still want to make it down there sometime for their ice. I think Lucy'd like it too. Over the weekend went to Sola for dinner on Saturday night. I like that place. Sunday we went to the beach in the morning again. Lucy loves the beach. And the water. She's blowing bubbles now, so that's cute. She also seems pretty well adjusted to day care. Not so much with the crying anymore. Oh, got a Biologic Bike Mount for iPhone 4 last week, had it on for a couple of days, maybe even 1 day, and I broke it. I mounted it on my stem, and hit it with my knee when dismounting. Only a little piece broke, but Biologic doesn't sell any replacement parts. So I'd have to buy a whole new one. Instead, I'm going to see if I can fix it. Cut some grooves, might look for some plastic weld, and if not, then some quality epoxy. We'll see. Hopefully I can salvage it. I think I've decided on a Surly Pacer as my next bike. Just need to find a shop to buy it from. And if I go complete or build up.

Feel like spending money. Will probably get that SSD for the iMac when Mountain Lion is released in a month. And a new bike too. Still deciding on what to get, and now have learned that Titanium might be better than Steel for a frame. Uh oh. Maybe I should just go looking for a nice used bike to use. Would have loved to have just used my old Miyata from growing up, but it's long gone. Anyway, Lucy seems to be adjusting to day care. Not so much with the crying at drop off. Actually ok with going in the morning. A little cranky in the evenings though, which might be because she doesn't get as long as a nap as she wants. She takes after her mom in that way. Otherwise, not much going on. It's been hot, yesterday was supposed to be crazy hot, but wasn't that bad. Been sort of reading Jurassic Park, on and off. With bike commuting, just not reading at all anymore. Current guilty pleasure: Love in the Wild. Not sure why I like that reality relationship adventure show, but I do. It's strangely addicting.

Drobo rebuild complete. Yay. Moved the 2x2TB drives into the RAID1 backup for the iMac, so now creating a full clone, instead of leaving stuff out. And now I've got 4x1TB just sitting around. Thinking of getting an OWC Mercury Elite Pro 4-Bay RAID enclosure to use them. Then I'd actually have a backup for the stuff on the Drobo. Maybe next month. Was also tempted to move all the machines to SSDs, but again, maybe not for a couple of months. OWC finally released their USB enclosure for MacBook Air SSDs, so that's tempting. And since the SuperDrive doesn't work in the iMac was going to replace it with an SSD, which actually might provide the most boost, since that gets used the most probably. So maybe. Not sure. Wait and see. Seems like everyone in the family is back to health, although Lucy sneezed on the way to school the other day and I had to wipe away a lot of snot that came out of her nose. Bike commuting's been rough this week, heavy headwinds on the way in, nice tailwinds on the way out, and super hot. I actually had to head back in to work after coming home last night to replace a drive on a server. I thought it'd be easier without my bags, and it was, but the 2nd trip home of the day my legs started feeling it. Also, I cancelled my haircut from back in May, and I'm looking pretty shaggy right now. Been waiting for a good weekend to get it done, and Saturday finally looks like it's gonna happen. I can tuck my hair behind my ears, it's that long and annoying. Was almost tempted to buzz cut it at home, and Tracy toyed with the idea of giving me a trim.

For my 2nd Father's Day Lucy got me sick. Yay! Pretty much the only thing she had that she could give me, so I guess it's better than nothing? Lucy ended up going home sick on Friday, with a low grade fever and after throwing up. So Tracy took the day off too. Saturday went to Green City Market as usual, then headed over to Fullerton Beach. Water was freezing, which was shocking to me, up until I realized that it was 10am. Then it made sense. Got some Del Seoul for lunch, to satisfy another craving of mine. Sunday went out to the Argaos, when I got taken out by Lucy's present. Felt like a fever, full body aches. Took a nap, made it home, laid on the floor under a blanket, took a shower, went to bed at 9pm. Woke up like someone punched me in the gut, kind of hard to straighten up. Took some ibu's and after the bike ride in felt much better. And then today, Tracy got it too. So continues the joy of day care. In tech news, first Drobo rebuild complete, and now replaced another 2TB with a 3TB drive. Another 50 hours and I should be good to go for maybe another year or so. Bike ride in to work today was slow because of the wind. Made me worried that it was going to shift and I'd also have a headwind on the way home. But not the case today. Tailwinds are awesome. I used gears I only use on downhills.

Almost 2 weeks into daycare, and Lucy seems to be settling down a bit. 10 minutes of crying in the morning, 1 day with no crying at all. Napping too. So maybe adjusting. But she probably picked up her first of many diseases, just a low grade fever. She gets to watch a lot of Thomas & Friends though. I think she likes the bike ride to school in the morning. ANd the biking is starting to pay off. Starting to lose some weight, clothing starting to fit better again. It's nice. Legs kind of in a constant state of tired though. Strange. I don't even try and go fast, except up the 1 incline on Halsted at Chicago. Otherwise, I'm trying to relax more and enjoy my commutes. Drobo's been complaining about getting low on space, so finally got a couple 3 TB drives. Briefly thought about 4 TB, but cost per GB just in favor of the 3. First rebuild is supposed to take 38 hours, but checking again has jumped to 73. Awesome. And to think I need to do that twice. But then I should be able to repurpose the 2TB's for the Raid 1 Backup drives for the iMac, which means I can finally do a nuke and pave . I'll just wait for Mountain Lion though. I assume there will be an updated Mountain Lion Recovery Partition, and I can start clean all over again. That'll be nice.

Third day for Lucy at Day Care. She seems to be adjusting. Tracy worked the last 2 nights and has today off, so she's dropped Lucy off for the first 3 days. I got to pick her up the last 2. So I got the good part, the running to, the "Daddy Daddy". That's mostly nice. They say she only cries when getting dropped off and at recess when they go outside. Otherwise she's fine. And she's been coming back covered in paint, so she's painting and drawing. So that's cool. I get to drop her off tomorrow and Friday so I get to be the one she calls as she cries. Also means I'm coming in to work later than usual, since her room doesn't start until 7:45am. We'll wait until she's more acclimated until we try dropping her off in the early drop off room. I think, and I hope, she's having fun. Picking her up was cool too because I bike home from work on the Sprint, then pick up the Xtracycle and head up to Irving Park via Pine Grove to pick her up. So she gets a little bike ride on the way home. I'll do the same thing in reverse when I drop her off. So she'll get a bike ride in the morning too. Just wanting to get the most use out of that Xtracycle. Like when I dropped off a couple boxes of old clothes at my parents condo, I strapped them on and biked over. Or when I picked up 20 lbs 64 qt bag of Miracle Gro Moisture Control potting mix for Tracy from Home Depot last night. So yeah, living the biking life right now.

Almost skipped biking today. Feeling tired and sluggish. A little sore too. But I sucked it up and biked in the drizzle on the way in. Think I figured out my path in and out, mostly. Halsted to Milwaukee and Kedzie for a bit then down Canal. Up Clinton on the way home, but that gets a little crazy by the tracks and Kedzie. It's not bad. Lucy's last day at Grandma daycare. She's off to Park View Montessori School on Monday. Scary. I hope she likes it. We went and visited again on Wednesday morning, so I could see what it's like too, and she left us right away to play at the stations. Hopefully that means good things for Monday morning. But it's a school. Institutional. But Ms. Joanne seems nice. Lots to play with. The few kids that we saw seem nice too. Fingers crossed. Not much else is new.

Bike the Drive 2012 went well on Sunday. Hot though. Nice cruising on the Xtracycle. Will try and post some photos, but got a nice one of Lucy and I both tucking on a downhill. Which is awesome. Only went from Addison down to Grant Park to pick up our t-shirts, then down to 31st or so before heading back up. Had an early lunch at the Clock Tower Cafe, which was alright. Mike, Amy, and Caden dropped by later to play in the kiddie pool on the roof. Then on Monday we met up at the Fullerton Beach in the morning. That was fun. Saturday after hitting up the market as usual, where we also saw Amy and Caden. After Lucy's nap we went up to Babies R Us since we ran out of wipes, and then hit up a Home Depot for wood and a nail gun to build a planter for Tracy. Ends up the Home Depot is right next to H Mart. So Tracy got her macapuno ube Magnolia ice cream and green tea popsicles, while I got my read bean popsicles and mais queso (sweet corn and cheese) ice cream. Awesome. Much too hot this weekend to put the planter together, but great for the ice cream and popsicles. Finally watched The Green Lantern. Eh. Hard to watch when you've got your finger on the volume buttons, constantly adjusting so as not to wake the sleeping kid. Almost tempted not to bike in today, as I'm feeling a little tired from all the biking, but did anyway.

Kinda hoping for the Sprint to break down. Making an awful creaking/grinding noise from the bottom bracket area again. Don't want to take it apart to grease up again, but might have to. But even if it did break down, not sure what I'll want to replace it with. I like the idea of city bikes, but I do get tempted by true road bikes. I like alternative technologies, like a belt drive. I like internal hubs. But there's something about going back to the simplicity of derailleurs and chains. Don't think I could ever go to a single/fixed. I like gears too much. Definitely have to be able to take front/back racks. Probably lean towards a city/commuter and then get a real bike someday if/when we move to the suburbs, or at least someplace with space for more bikes. In the meantime, I'll keep chugging along. Finally getting a cup holder for the bikes too, and another handlebar for the Xtracycle. Forgot to mention one of the best things about coming in to work on the Monday of the The 2012 NATO Summit: AT&T data service that actually worked. Back to biking though. I'm feeling better, and while I haven't lost any weight yet, I think I look better. So that's something.

So the The 2012 NATO Summit came and went. I never actually saw a single protest. And I rode in and worked in the office on Friday, Monday and today. Monday was the absolute quietest, like working the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas. It was quite nice. Friday was pretty quiet, and today it's pretty much back to normal. Saturday after Green City Market which was packed, went up to the Chicago Kids and Kites 2012 festival up on Montrose by the lake. That was really cool. Didn't get a kite, because I think I still have one somewhere, but I don't think Lucy minded. She was just playing in the grass, eating a ketchup sandwich for lunch (her choice). If I don't still have it, we'll get one, and maybe we'll fly it off the roof, if she likes it. Then she proceeded to have a 3.5 hour nap. Sunday we were out all day in the car, supply shopping, and happily ended up at Knupper Nursery & Landscape. Happily because they had a sand table, and Lucy got to play while Tracy when shopping for plants. So that was something fun she got to do, besides hang out in an infant car seat at Babies R' Us (again, her choice).

So, there's this The 2012 NATO Summit thing going on this weekend. Work was nice enough to let people work from home and close the office Friday, Monday and Tuesday. So far we haven't seen anything, well, I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary at all. As far as I can tell, nothing's different, on the west side just outside the Loop. Biking's been easy. Had some back creaking from the bottom bracket again, had to take it out and grease it up again. But fairly quite now. Think I need my wheels trued though. Had 1 loose spoke, which probably means bad things. Hanging the bike from the ceiling probably doesn't help matters much either. Lucy's good, seems to be talking more. A few phrases here and there. Took a bath in the big tub last night. I think she liked it. Tracy also took her to check out her new daycare, and I guess she liked it, enough that she didn't want to leave after her visit. Hopefully that's good, since she starts in less than 2 weeks. Scary. After my 5 book binge last week, trying to start Blueprints of the Afterlife, but I can't seem to get into it. Maybe I need to be on the beach. But with a backlog of TV to watch, just haven't been reading in the evenings, and with biking, no reading on the commute. Just got to make the time.

A real vacation. Just got back from a real vacation. Days spent on the beach or by the pool. One afternoon went kayaking in the lagoon. Otherwise, perfect. Made it through 5 books. Forgot to mention I got a Kindle 4 before leaving, since I needed something for beach/pool reading, and I just went with the cheapest version. And it's awesome. Except for the whole special format and converting of epubs, it's great. Light, pretty easy to use, and now a couple days back I'd almost rather use it than the iPhone 4S or iPad. Crazy. But totally came in handy. Kinda carried it around everything. Had a man purse anyway with camera. Resort only had Wi-Fi in the lobby, but it was free. So very sporadic email checking. That was quite nice. Never VPN/RDP'd for work. That was cool. Didn't try FaceTime either, timing didn't work out well. Lucy had too much fun with Grandma and Grampa anyway. Dad sent me photos of her working in the yard, almost made us want to come back sooner. Great to see Lisa and Ryan too. Only problem, Tracy got sick (as in Cold or Flu), and I picked it up too. So strange to have a cough, but I guess a good vacation since there was so much lounging about. Travel was fine. Didn't do that much drinking. Food was ok. But still, reading all day, the occasional dip in the ocean and pool? Awesome. Nice to be back though. Really good to see Lucy. I missed her.

So, 26th post for 2012 and it's already May. That's why I numbered posts this year, to see just how bad I am at updating this thing. Biking to work has been good. Fun even. Last week though got caught in the rain 3 days in a row on the way home. Not bad, just annoying after a while. Today ran out for some Crisp, there and back in about 30 minutes, including ordering and waiting for the food. Super easy to just pop it on the cetma rack. I love that thing. I mounted a couple Planet Bike Blaze 1W headlights to it, so now I'm rocking duals, although I won't really need them until the fall. Besides biking, had a 2nd birthday party for Lucy. Best present for her has been the fruit cutting and the cookware set from Auntie Amy. Kind of sad but good is that she hasn't been playing with her iPad as much. Now that I put Netflix on it, recently it's a way to watch Thomas the Train Engine. Yay! Yay? She's trying to count now too, but skipping the unimportant numbers like 4-7. And she likes playing hide and seek, except you can't hide too well, and she just runs away and comes back when it's her turn to hide. Gonna miss her since Tracy and I are going to Mexico for our anniversary with the Cases for their anniversary, all sans kids. So Lucy's spending the rest of the week out in Woodstock with Grandma and Grandpa. Looks like FaceTime works, so hopefully we'll get some 21st century parenting in. Picked up a pair of Native Nano2 sunglasses from Moosejaw. Hopefully I won't lose these for at least 3 years.

Finally biking again. Finally got my cetma rack installed. Got a rear quick release skewer, but that ended up being too big, then got the bright idea to just swap out front skewers with the xtracycle, which worked like a charm. So I'm rocking a front porteur style rack, took off the rear Wald folding metal baskets, but kept the Tubus Cargo, and bungie my Tom Bihn Ristretto to the front and strap my Arkel TailRider to the back and off I go to work. Works well. When I bring Lucy in the mornings I double fist it, BOB Revolution on the left, and the Sprint on the right, held and steered by the stem. Then I get to jet down the Lake Front Path. So much harder than cruising through the city, since it's non-stop. Like night and day. Makes me crave a real road bike. Oh well. Good exercise. Which is good. Since we're headed to Mexico in a couple of weeks. And the cheesecake my mom gave us for Easter, which I ended up eating, didn't help at all. Reread Ready Player One, still a fun read. Started up the Percy Jackson books again, partly because I watched the movie and also wanted some more fluff to read. Lost my sunglasses, which is annoying. Brought Lucy to Green City Market last Saturday, but parking was really bad, so got frustrated driving around, then she wanted to chase the ducks and geese, but I just wanted to get to the market to get some fiadone's from Zullo's, and ended up they weren't even there, and at some point I put my hood up over the sunglasses on my head, and at the end of the day, realized I no longer had them. That was a good 3 or so years for those, which is actually pretty good for me. So now have to get another pair. Probably another pair of Smiths. ANd probably shouldn't just buy them from Amazon, or at least, wait until I try them on somewhere.

Finished up the Mistborn Trilogy. Good stuff. Went back and finished The Hunger Games Trilogy, once again plowing through Mockingjay in a day. Not sure what to read or reread next, but going to try listening to The Sports Guy podcast finally. Figure it's about time. Didn't realize Paganello was this past weekend. Guess Scandal won again. Looking at the team list, seams like it's getting smaller again. Wonder what the fun factor is there. Akira would know since he's been going for 12 years now? Wow. Lost my old iPad, which had become Lucy's iPad. Toca Boca games are great. Lucy seems to be able to figure stuff out, and do most of the mini games. The mazes not so much. But works well for keeping her engaged and quiet, say, when my parents and and us were at Socca for Easter brunch, and we didn't have crayons for her. Also my parents got to see what she's like at church too. It was so packed on Sunday that there wasn't any room in the back to hang out with the kid when she got too fussy, so instead, all the parents with active children were hanging out on the church steps in the sun. That was pretty nice. Finally got my taxes and stuff together. Hopefully enough time for the accountant to figure out how much we owe. Back to iPads, my Dad didn't really use his, so my Mom gets that one (an iPad 2), and my mom's old iPad (original 16 GB 3G) is now Lucy's. It's really that useful. And educational. Although right now she loves the letter O. Again, need to get back to biking, and need to start sleeping. Not sure why I've been so reluctant to just go to sleep at night.

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.

Happy Birthday to my Brother and a happy anniversary to my parents! So what's new? Tracy brought Lucy to Family Grounds, a coffee shop/kids playroom over in North Center/West LakeView, and it looks awesome. Except Lucy probably picked up a cold or something from there, which is really just causing a lot of mucus. But Lucy had it, then Tracy got it, and I thought I was in the clear, but eventually I got it too. Annoying. I'm all Mac at work, just remote desktopping into Windows machines as needed, although I'm doing BootCamp on the MacBook Air. Just no SQL Server tools for the Mac. Almost would be enough. Hmmm, maybe my first Mac app? Since they're already bringing Notes.app to Mountain Lion. Hmmm. Started working on my bikes last weekend, but only had a small window during Lucy's Sunday nap to work on it. Took the Xtracycle apart, almost completely, switched out the handle bars, need to redo derailleur and brake cables. Needs a good cleaning too. My toothbrush is pretty old, so that'll get repurposed. Then have to switch out the handlebars/brake levers on the Sprint, new pedals and toe clips, and then maybe I'll start riding into work again. Would be nice to get some regular exercise again.

Still feel like I'm playing catchup on sleep. But when I do get to bed early, I'm up at like 5am. Took care of Lucy this past weekend, and at some point Tracy's going for a girls weekend, so I'll have Lucy all to myself for an entire long weekend. After church on Sunday, Lucy and I went to Water Tower Place specifically so I could get some Shiseido products for me, and picked up some Wow Bao for lunch. Played a bit in the LEGO Store, and I realized that would be the only other retail job I'd want to work besides the Apple Store. Just seems too fun. Also, we need to get Lucy some official DUPLO, and away from the Mega Bloks. Way more expensive, but worth it I think. Quality is just so much better. I did get stopped a couple times by people remarking on how cute Lucy is. Doesn't help when leaving Lucy waves good-bye and blows them kisses. I made her a couple cardboard slides, so she can have some fun getting off the couch. Goes with her cardboard house, which was the first thing she ran into when she got home yesterday. I knew I should have kept all the boxes from the holidays around. I could have made a mansion. I think it might be time for making blanket and pillow forts. Tracy's been on a reading kick lately. Like big time. Makes me happy that she likes a series I found, well, stumbled upon from one of the many rss feeds I read. Like, it's her new favorite series. She wants to talk to me about it, but I haven't read them yet. It's the Mistborn Trilogy.

Tracy got a taste of 2 kids today. She got to babysit Caden for the afternoon. Ends up the 2 kids kind of take care of themselves, playing with or near each other. Apparently Lucy was quite helpful too, picking up Caden's bottle when he dropped it, his pants when Tracy had to change him. They got to play in the cardboard house together. And Lucy got to have McDonald's french fries thanks to Uncle Mike. Been trying to get to bed early, still feel like I'm playing catchup on sleep. Debating on whether to jailbreak my iPhone 4S and iPad again just for f.lux. That's the only thing, but I still want to be able to do updates. But tempting now that they fixed the iBooks issue. Got some more parts for my bikes from Velo Orange. Just standardizing on pedals and toe clips, and city bars. Figure it's time I just went all in to the city bike genre. Cause who am I kidding, they aren't bikes built for speed, at all. Also figure I needed to get them back up and running since there's only four months till Bike the Drive.

So all that sleep drama with Lucy, and I almost ruined it by checking on her at 5:30am on Saturday when she cried. Didn't pick her up, but just went back to sleep on the chair, which is really comfortable, and I'm looking forward to when we can pull it out of the nursery and back into the living room. But she ended up crying, just a little bit, before the next couple of naps and bedtimes. But then last night, she's back on schedule. Fingers crossed. Green City Market on Saturday, didn't have any sweet tamales, which made me sad. Still no chicken pesto fiadonis at Zullo's, hopefully next week. Didn't really want anything. Didn't even hang out at the Nature Museum, opted to have Lucy run around for a bit outside, treeing squirrels and whatnot. Picked up Lito's Empenada's for lunch, which were fabulous. Went downtown shopping after her nap, she got to play around in a little Lamborghini and Mercedes Benz for kids at Neiman Marcus (we were there for the piriouettes). Brought her to Indian Garden, where I think she od'd on mango lassi. Didn't really like the tandoori chicken, liked the pakora, not so much the matter paneer. She got a little crazy at the end though. After church on Sunday went to Cost Plus World Market for Tracy's free coffee, and picked up some odds and ends, like Wasabi flavored chips, which are strangely addicting. Lucy likes 'em too. Got mac and cheeses from Noodles & Company. That was also some good stuff. Headed over to Mike and Amy and Caden's for chili and the Super Bowl. Been plowing through Greek, and on the last season or volume, or whatever they call it.

Shifted Lucy's bedtime by an hour later. No more 45 minutes of crying in crib before sleeping, no more night wakings with crying, no more crying upon waking up in the morning, and actually sleeping in. Amazing. Crazy work day yesterday, as we had a server switch on an entry database server, but I had to leave early to pick up Lucy, and then she has a later bedtime, while I still had to fix things because of the switch, and then I find out at 6pm I need to get some machines set up for temp workers who came in today, so with Lucy's later bedtime I didn't get back into the office until 9pm, and then didn't leave until 1:30am. Crazy town. Although I gave up my stable of machines to the temp users so I'm working off my laptop today, and it gave me a chance to do some desktop cleaning. Nicer having some open space, instead of 7 monitors on my desk. Using the Mac mini (Mid 2007). Slow, but usable. So actually on my work desk I have the mini, the blackbook, and my MacBook Air (11-inch Late 2010). All mine. It's my Mac farm upstate where old computers can frolic in the fields. Looking forward to getting some more sweet tamales at Green City Market. The one I had last week was amazing, and Tracy thought so as well. Also looking forward to catching up on some sleep. Hoping to stay away from work computer stuff this weekend. I felt bad last night, because Lucy would get upset when I sat down at the computer at home, and she'd try and push me out of it so we could play. I hope I'm not already being that dad who works too much.

So native HDMI makes a huge difference on keeping a signal recognized through extenders and splitters and stuff. Swapped out the old Mac mini (Mid 2007) for the Mac mini (Mid 2010) for the conference room at work after I setup my new Mac mini (Mid 2011) at home via a straight SuperDuper! clone. Works so much better, it's not even funny. But I did get to put Lion and setup synergy on the old Mac mini for my desk. Testing machine. Might mean I can retire the Macbook, or just use it for real testing. But means I'm up to 7 monitors at my desk. That's crazy. Thinking I might need to start doubling up, instead of putting them in one line. Also upped the house Mac mini back up to 8GB RAM. Surprised how much of a difference it makes. Another winner from Other World Computing. Lucy might be back to champion sleeping. Pushed her bedtime back, well, ended up to be an hour or so, and she only had a little bit of crying, and went right to bed. Surprised it was that simple. Starting to get to the point that I have to stop thinking of her as a baby. It's hard though, since she'll always be my baby. Did I mention I made her a cardboard house from a box? It's pretty sweet. I'm wanting to put in LED lighting, some shelving, a table. Makes me want to buy more things so we can get more boxes. I finally upgraded to a speaker bar, a Boston Acoustics TVee Model 25, for the bedroom. Much better now. Can actually watch stuff in bed. So much spending, but my bonus came in, so, burning a hole in my pocket. My iPad is kind of falling apart, but I need it to stick around until a Retina Display iPad comes out. I figure that's my next purchase.

Was on daddy day care for 4 straight days last week. Took Thursday and Friday off, while parents were in Las Vegas, and took care of Lucy. Thursday had breakfast with Tracy after she went to the gym. Then after Lucy's nap took the bus down to pick up a new Mac mini, so I could then bring the older current Mac mini in to work to replace the really old Mac mini. Then wandered over to Fleet Feet Sports to use up the gift certificate from placing 2nd in the Trick or Treat Trot last fall (I got SuperFeet for my clogs at work, and some Gu for the Bike the Drive, which we're already signed up for). Then picked up some treats for Tracy from delightful pastries before heading home on the bus and stopping by a playground for Lucy. Friday went to a playground in the morning down on Armitage, all to get Pasta Palazzo for lunch. Ended up taking a cab back home, because I didn't want to wait for the bus, and I had slightly miscalculated timing since Pasta Palazzo didn't open until 11:30am. Picked up some more treats from Vosges Haut-Chocolat. Then another playground after lunch. Saturday went to Green City Market with my parents, played in the Nature Museum, before trying to have lunch at Soupbox, but failing again because the soup was too hot, and they only have 1 high chair which was already in use. From now on, only carryout there with Lucy. Sunday went to church with my parents, then down to Chinatown, not knowing it was the parade, but found a parking spot anyway and waited 30 minutes for some dim sum at Ming Hin Cuisine. It was nice because you just marked what you wanted on their photo menu, and it comes, instead of waiting for carts to come by. Not as authentic, but so much easier. Lucy sat in a high chair and ate pork belly and spare ribs. She fell asleep on the way home, so after picking up Tracy's prescriptions at CVS and dropping my parents off at Whole Foods, went on a long drive to Northbrook to get her some nap time. Had to do it because she hasn't been napping well, and she's been crying before going to bed, and getting up and crying in the middle of the night, and getting up early and crying. It's like a complete 180 from her previous sleep habits. No idea why, and it seemed like the flipping of a switch, from champion sleeper to not so much. Almost been a week and not sure what to do about it.

You know what's disappointing? Finding out a similar condo to yours is for sale next door about 16% lower then the previous sale price. And having a new construction unit that's almost identical, and probably a little bit better (a usable front deck) for 10% less than what we paid for our place. Yuck. Not underwater, but lost money. Also, living and looking at real estate in the city means we overestimate prices for homes in the 'burbs. Which probably means we'll end up overpaying for something out there, if and/or when that happens. Anyway, I can't stop watching Greek. Not that my college life was anything like that, but I just can't stop watching. Lucy spent the night last night at the grandparents. Just watched Hanna, while Tracy was working. That movie had a bunch of music video moments/montages. It was interesting. Probably try and watch Attack the Block on Thursday. Parents are headed to Vegas and Tracy's working this weekend, so I get Lucy Thursday - Sunday. Hope she still likes me after the weekend.

Snowpocalypse 2012 II was ok. And now with the rain and weather it's all pretty much gone already. Lucy did get some snow play time though out on the in-laws deck. We were out there on Sunday to pick up more of Lucy's toys from Christmas, and to make a Target run. Had a 5pm dinner at a surprisingly busy Red Lobster in Downer's Grove. The night before took Lucy out to Jin Ju where she enjoyed some Chop Chae and tried out chopsticks. Got out to Green City Market Saturday morning. Nice to be back, but haven't seen Zullo's in a while. Fairly small turnout, which I guess can be expected. Lucy had some snowplay after the market/museum at a playground. Didn't figure out duct taping her mittens to her sleeves until snowplay on Sunday at the in-laws. Duct tape works great, and will be a stop gap solution until the L-Bow Mittens come in (thanks Russell for the recommendation). I have to find something to wear though, as snow was creeping over the tops of my boots, and the bottoms of my pants were getting wet. Tracy just wore her ski pants.

Now it feels like winter. Another snowpocalypse is upon us tomorrow. Supposedly. Last one wasn't too bad, and didn't stick around, maybe this one will have some staying power. Still trying to plow through The Illuminatus Trilogy. Slow going. Starting to feel like a textbook, or homework, and I just need to power through and finish it. At some point. Tracy joined Goodreads, which is cool. Just on the lookout for more books to read. Maybe this will rub off on Lucy at some point, the reading thing. Of course, who knows what she'll be reading on. My hope is that flexible color e-ink, like futuristic newspapers, are in her lifetime, which would I guess also mean in my lifetime. Apple had a small event to release iBooks 2, with Textbooks, and iBook Author. Rather interesting. You'll see more iPads in high schools at least. It'll be crazy to see if iPads = desks from Ender's Game. I remember not so long ago in movies that you'd have to fake having something like an iPad by using special effects, but now? Just use an iPad. Crazy work week. Probably be a bit crazier for a bit longer. Finally got back on the horse and started the Gorilla Workout again. Still sore from the 8 squats/8 pushups sets as many as you can do in 10 minutes.

Tried out the Apple Store pick up from store option for my dad's new iPad 2 (Christmas present from my mom) last Thursday. Ordering was super easy. Used the Apple Store app on the iPhone 4S. Got to the store, started up the app, said I was there to pick it up, then they told me I'd be notified when it's ready. Not so much. It was pretty empty, and I did turn down the greeter, mostly because I wanted to see how it works. I think the staff hasn't seen it very much either. The app did tell me to meet Steven by the entrance. A problem in the Lincoln Park Apple Store which has 3 entrances. But someone else ended up helping me, without any interaction with the app at all. Super simple transaction, but still wish the app integration worked perfectly. It didn't. Super easy to set up the iPad for my dad too. Had to do some trickery to get his contacts and bookmarks over from his old MobileMe account to his personal email iCloud account. Had time to do all that because Lucy slept over at my mom's, partly because of the snow. That was nice. Saturday got Tracy's car's emissions tested. Brought Lucy since Tracy was working. Ended up at the Evanston Winter Farmer's Market, which was pretty small. Bundled her up and let her play in the snow in a playground for a little bit. Keeping the seal on toddler's gloves/coat seems impossible. I'm thinking duct tape. Otherwise, her snow pants worked out great. She does need boots though. First thing she wanted? A ride on the swing. Park was pretty cool, had a little bouldering/climbing wall. Didn't stay out too long, mostly because it was freezing, and partly because I didn't have a real pair of gloves. Those were waiting for me in the mail when I got home. Sunday went out to breakfast at Kanela's. Haven't done that in a while. Bundled her up again, a little bit better, and let her play in the snow on the roof for a while.

Starting to really slack on documenting my life. Went from Daily Dose that was actually daily, to not so daily, then Current events to storytlr with Foursquare, Miso and GoodReads, and now not even that, but the last drop off is because AT&T is almost completely unusable downtown. I actually got my best service on the way home last night when I would first enter underground El stations on the Red Line. That just seems wrong. Although I wonder if something is actually wrong with my iPhone 4S, because the last time I got annoyed with it, I brought out my iPad, switched on Cellular data, and was connected without any problems. But how would I bring that up to Geniuses at the Apple Store? Do hardware diagnostics exist for iPhones? Can't even replicate the issue, or maybe can't narrow it down to either hardware or network. Or is AT&T downtown just that bad? Never seems like any other users are getting as frustrated as I am being unable to use data services. I wonder if it's that bad with Verizon or Sprint? Too bad I'm locked in for a couple years. That would have been an easy way to figure out if it's a hardware/network issue, if I could switch to Verizon or Sprint for a little bit. But even though the phone is capable, the networks aren't willing. Stupid. Enough ranting. Snowpocalypse is upon us. Taking the Red Line home tonight, staying away from buses. Last night was taking the Red Line home and made it all the way over before realizing I left my home keys in the office. Had to go back and get them. Then decided to pick up baked goodies on the way home. Maybe I am done with cupcakes for a while.

Nuke and Pave. Both iPhone 4S and iPad. DFU restores. Starting from scratch. No restores from backup. Installing apps as I go. Foregoing lurking on Facebook as well. First apps: iBooks, Twitteriffic, Reeder. Also trying to keep iPhone/iPad in sync, not installing non-universal apps as much as possible. Exceptions: foursquare, Buster. Only have 2 home screens on the iPhone so far. Just a couple apps over into the 2nd home screen on the iPad. Curious how this is going to work out. Also trying to limit myself to syncing apps, that aren't data black holes. Wish there was an iOS universal RDP client that kept your connection list synced between devices. Oh well. But just want to keep apps that I use. Lucy's been crying at bedtime the last couple of nights. Strange. She was so good at sleeping before. Hoping it's a short phase. With the Christmas decorations down, and Tracy's plants not up yet, the living room is strangely empty. Getting that urge to nuke and pave the AV Rack. All those wires are pretty annoying. Tempting.

Fairly lazy first weekend of the year. Tracy took down decorations, I helped a little with the tree, bagging it, sawing some branches off, and lopping the top off. Probably easier to just hack it to pieces next year. Brought out the big Meile vacuum for all the needles. And finally got under the couch. Who knows how long that's been. Finally watched Captain America: The First Avenger during Lucy's nap on Saturday. She even caught the tail end of it. She even got some playground time this weekend, weather was nice enough. Dinner out on Saturday night at Forno Diablo, but simple rustic italian fare. Tracy had a craving. Plowed through some How I Met Your Mother's that had backed up. Kind of a downer of a season. Church and stuff on Sunday, another playground, got some Five Guys, the girls had Chipotle. Jailbroke my iPad for pretty much a single reason: F.lux. Except now I just realized that iBooks no longer works on a jailbroken device. Stupid. So now I've got to restore. I really really liked f.lux too. Poop.

Post of 2012, and already slacking. 6 days in. Just used the Starbucks app to register a Starbucks card and then pay for my short Caramel Macchiato by scanning it. Pretty cool. Rang in the first day of the new year with some food poisoning. Probably turned me off of prime rib for a bit. Shouldn't eat a medium rare leftover after a week in the fridge. Not pleasant at all. But only lasted a night/day. Had some miscommunication on New Year's Eve day, so had to bring Lucy with me when I had to come in to work on a Saturday. I don't think she liked that. Had to come in on Monday to finish up what I couldn't. Tracy came down and we got lunch on her day off. That was nice. She actually took a full day off and dropped Lucy off at my mom's. Good idea too as she's fighting off a cold. Started watching Greek again. Figured out how to get Sony Reader books unDRMed and into iBooks. So that's nice. Been reading a lot of comics, specifically, G.I. Joe from IDW. They actually blamed the subprime thing on a villain who gave the heroes a choice between stopping that financial crisis or a poison gas attack. Which one really is worse, in the long run? Finally taking down Christmas decorations this weekend. Yuck. Tempted to cut up the tree before sticking it in bags for removal from the premises. Not sure what's going on this weekend, but nothing too extravagant.