Union Pacific's Great Excursion Adventure

Zero to sixty and back again

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Friday: Coda
We’re at just under ten-and-a-half hours now.
I’m exhausted from all of the running around of the past two days…

…but I’m also quite excited for tomorrow morning later this morning.

After leading six cars from Midvale to downtown Salt Lake City (which SaraRules likened to “herding cats”), I had a wonderful time at dinner with family, friends and soon-to-be-family. I also realized the this evening was the first time I’ve had my whole family – both sides of it – in the same place, at the same time, since I graduated from high school. Added bonus:Having SaraRules’ family there as well. On a side-/amusing note: It just dawned on me a few days ago that I’m about to have three sets of parents. And, I’m picking up a set of grandparents, as well. Win-Win.

Tonight’s dinner was at Biaggi’s, at The Gateway. The food was great – I had their Pork Chop al Forno, SaraRules had a Penne pasta dish – as was the company.

All-in-all, it was a great way to kick off the wedding weekend.

And now, sweet sweet sleep.

Namaste.

Yet another whirlwind day…

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Friday – 02 October 2009
Another day of picking family up at the airport. (Grace has gotten big!)

And a trip to Men’s Wearhouse to get the tuxes.

And…
And…
And…

*whew*

And we’re about to head off to the rehearsal dinner.

By this time tomorrow, we’re gonna be married!

Namaste.

“This is my family. I found it, all on my own.”

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Thursday – 01 October 2009
This NBN Thursday kicked off around 0745… and at only 32°F. Of course, following a day where it snowed (TWICE!), I’m glad that this morning was just clear and cold. Additionally, none of the snow in the valley lasted; on the mountaintops, however… *shrug*

This morning saw the first of today’s airport runs that SaraRules and I will be making:

  1. Adam (Sib-3), Chelsea and Caden (Nephew-1) arrived at 0900. Their baggage… we weren’t too sure about. From the time they deplaned to the time they made it down to baggage claim, nothing with their flight number came up. This didn’t make them – nor the other people on their flight – very happy. Adam went to see what had happened while Chelsea went to get the rental car. According to him, the baggage claim clerk said that the people on their flight “didn’t make it to baggage claim fast enough,” so they took their baggage off the carousel and put it in the claims office. “Not fast enough?!” They walked from the gate to baggage claim! Any faster and they would have had to ‘port there. Idiotstick. Meanwhile, Chelsea was still waiting in line at the car rental counter – they only had one person working the desk. All told, it took almost an hour to get everything straight, which put us there when…
  2. My stepsister, Barbara, arrived. In fact, I had to leave the others to finalize the rental arrangements to meet her. She had already gotten her luggage by the time I got back to baggage claim. We met the others at the rental counters. She got her car and we were off.

We had a “slight miscue” getting out of the airport, but that was clarified a couple of phone calls later. I dropped SaraRules off at home – she was meeting her sister and mother for a spa day and afternoon tea – before leading Adam and company to their hotel; I didn’t have to lead Barbara, as she had a GPS in her car… and she took off without us. Everyone checked in and then we went out for lunch.

Now, I’m back at home to take care of some cleaning while there’s some down time.

Stray Toasters

  • T-minus two days…
  • Caden is adorable. That’s really all there is to it. Or, as SaraRules put it: “Adam’s very lucky to have Chelsea help him make a cute kid.”
  • Despite sending emails with weather updates to the family, I’ve already/still gotten two calls asking me how cold it is and if it really snowed yesterday.
  • Movie Posters for Minimalists
  • Being a bad guy can be good for career
  • I still haven’t watched Superman/Batman: Public Enemies yet!
  • I’m a bit late getting up to speed on this one, but it’s Banned Books Week.
  • Monster Cereal: Fan Art Month
  • Are you an Xbox Live subscriber? If so, what’s your gamertag?
  • Are you a member of Good Reads?  What’s your username?
  • From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Bank of America demands thumbprint from man with no arms

Namaste.

“Monday, Monday…”

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Monday – 28 September 2009
Today has been good, both at work and otherwise. I consider that an auspicious beginning to the week… especially considering how frenetic the week will become as Saturday approaches.

Speaking of Saturday, I met SaraRules at lunch and we went to get our marriage license. The whole thing took less than ten minutes, top to bottom. On the way back to the office, I stopped in at the in-laws-to-be for a few minutes, picked up a tasty burrito from Barbacoa and… AND… got a Slurpee!

Stray Toasters

Back to the grind.

Namaste.

Kidnapped!

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Sunday – 27 September 2009
Holy cow. This has been one helluva weekend. It has also reaffirmed my thoughts and feelings that I have an amazing fiancee and some equally amazing friends.

Saturday started with sleeping in. It was nice. SaraRules and I had planned on a relatively low-key day together, before the last week before the wedding. When we finally got in gear and out of the apartment, we headed to the Garden of Sweden and Hobby Lobby – we were looking for some picture frames (IKEA) and some ribbon for our wedding guest book. We found both. AND, we even had Slurpees! We eventually meandered back home. We straightened up a few things and chilled out before heading out to Tucano’s, a Brazilian steakhouse, for dinner.  Mmm… food-induced coma.

Then things went completely off the rails.

Around 6:00, when we were supposed to be leaving, there was a knock on the door. I looked out the peephole and thought I saw . Opening the door, I was more than “a little” shocked to see standing there, instead. Then he yelled, “Get ‘im!” and rushed in the door. He was followed by seven other people.

My first reaction: Fall into defensive mode and prepare to start throwing punches.

That’s when I noticed that loonybin88 was one of the people…

::: processing:::
::: processing :::
::: processing :::

It then clicked that I recognized the people and could stand down from preparing to fight, but I was still resistant to them trying to usher me out the door. (According to SaraRules, it apparently took four of them to push/pull me out.) As they got me out into the parking lot, looked at me and announced, “Welcome to your bachelor party!” As I was still in shock over the abruptness of what had just happened, the only thing that came to mind was:

“But I have dinner plans…”

Yeah. Brilliant. Because it hadn’t clicked in my head that my beautiful bride-to-be would have anything to do with me getting kidnapped and taken out for a surprise bachelor party. (Tricksy like a Hobbit, she is.) Apparently, she and had been planning this for weeks, once it became fairly public knowledge that I wasn’t planning on having a bachelor party. Their co-conspirators included: , and Chris S., , loonybin88, and Land.

We headed to Rodizio Grill, where , Chris (whom I play ‘Clix with) and SaraRules’ brother, Logan, joined us. While it wasn’t the quiet evening out with my fiancee that I was expecting, I enjoyed the deadly sin of Gluttony just as much. The food, as ever, was very good. The company was equally good.

After dinner, we piled into cars and headed to Fat Cats for some bowling and to shoot some pool. (And me without my bowling balls or shoes… *sigh*) According to Ye Olde Blog, I hadn’t been bowling since April 2008. Sad. We got in two games, I bowled a 170 and a 143; that wasn’t too bad, considering the lapse in time on the lanes. Next we played a couple hours’ worth of pool. There was a lot of slop, but we also had a lot of fun.

Next stop: and OnlyAly’s place for poker and drinking and general shooting the bull. We played until 0330 this morning. I bummed a ride home from Chris and Nox.

All told, I had an excellent game/geek-inspired bachelor party in the company of some great friends, to whom I can only say, “Thank you very much.”

Not too surprisingly, I slept in a bit on Sunday morning. I couldn’t sleep in very late, though, because it was the season’s first meeting between the Browns and the Ravens. We headed over to ‘s place, where Nox was already waiting. We also met a couple of ‘s friends, Christy and Clark… who were also Browns’ fans – we won’t hold that against them… much. Besides, it will be nice for to not have to drink alone for the next game. The Ravens brought their “A” game today, handing the Browns a 34-3 shellacking.

Cleveland Browns at Baltimore Ravens
3 – 34
Joe Flacco had another excellent week, posting 342 passing yards.

Let me repeat that, for those who missed it: Thirty-four to three. SaraRules, Nox and I did one shot, each, to ‘s seven. It was a beautiful thing.

After the game, SaraRules and I headed down to Kate and Perry’s; we were babysitting the kids this evening. Two of us… four kids… GO! Of course, watching the kids was a piece of cake. They started off watching a couple episodes of Lazy Town. (SaraRules noted that it will only be a few years before we are subjected to shows like this on a regular basis…) Next, they watched Next Avengers, which wasn’t too bad. We then fed the group and then sent the older kids to baths. We popped corn and let them watch Cars before sending them off to bed.

And now, it’s pre-Monday winding down time.

But, it’s been a great weekend.

Namaste.

“I can see for miles and miles…”

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Thursday – 24 September 2009
Another NBN Thursday is under way.  This one has the added bonus of starting with frozen mocha goodness.

Last night, I picked up my four-color shwag and headed home to decide what to do about dinner, as SaraRules had a post-work meeting. I was thinking “ramen” about the time that she called to say that she was on the way home. Win-Win. So, rather than artificially-flavored Japanese noodles, we had soft tacos. After dinner, she headed out to meet Melissa at the gym; I went to Target – I needed some boxes so that I could ship some eBay auction items. Before heading home, I stopped in to visit .

Back at home, before watching The Late Show, SaraRules and I practiced our first dance. There have been a couple of modifications. Nothing too major, fortunately. And, our… mastery (?)… of the dance is coming along.

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

“And, now, it’s time for the break down…”

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This morning’s meeting went well. It ran a little longer than planned, but we accomplished what we needed to.

Wes and I went to the gym for a brief workout today.  When we got to the weight bench, someone had left 275 pounds racked. I was tempted to try it, as I haven’t done a good attempt at a max in a while. So… I did. Bar came down. Bar went back up. Slowly, but it went up. I was happy with that; besides, I’m not sure that I would have gotten 300 pounds. As for the rest of the workout:

  • Sit-ups (incline): 3 sets/20 reps (with 5 extra reps on the last set)
  • Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps – 225 lbs, 205 lbs, 185 lbs
  • Flys: 3 sets/10 reps, 110 lbs (10 second hold on last rep of each set)
  • Lower Back Extensions: 3 sets/12 reps
  • Curls (dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs
  • Reverse Punch (dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 10 lbs

Post-workout weight: 188.2 lbs

On the way back to the office, I stopped to pick up a Slurpee. And it’s been quite tasty, along with the pizza from Papa Murphy’s.

I should probably get back to the grindstone.

Namaste.

Brainfreeze!

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Thursday: Coda
The rest of the work day turned out pretty well. Of course, after the way it started, it could only get better. I also got paid a really nice complAt lunch, I went out for a bit. I came home to pick up a couple of things (including my Florida State sweatshirt, as BYU is playing FSU this weekend…) and, on the way back, I stopped to pick up some fruit at Whole Foods… and a Slurpee®! That’s right. Frozen Wild Cherry and Pina Colada-flavored goodness.

After the workin’ day was over, I headed home. And we had dinner… and watched 300. Then it was time to go pick up and put down heavy things, with Melissa. Tonight’s workout consisted of:

  • Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 185 lbs
  • Leg Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 140 lbs
  • Calf Raises: 3 sets/10 reps, 120 lbs
  • Lower Back Extensions: 3 sets/12 reps
  • Bent-over Rows: 3 sets/10 reps, 35 lbs
  • Sit-ups (incline): 3 sets/20 reps
  • Lunges: 3 sets/5 reps per leg
  • Lateral Raises: 3 sets/10 reps, 15 lbs
  • Side Bends: 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs
  • Tricep Press (rope): 3 sets/15 reps, 60 lbs

Weight (morning): 184.5 lbs

Post-workout, just hanging out with Ms. SaraRules (and Heidi Klum)… which is a nice way to wrap up the day.

Tomorrow’s my 9/80 Friday off… and, even though I gave up The Leash today, I’m “on call,” as we only have one person in each office tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.

Namaste.

“Try, try, try to understand… he’s a magic man.”

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Thursday – 17 September 2009
Another NBN Thursday has begun. And, to make it even more sweet: It’s my “Friday.”

I posted some engagement photos on Facebook yesterday. While many are cute and some are even “fun,” my favorite one of the set was this one:

For those of you who haven’t seen them, you can click here.

And…. my NBN Thursday has been shot in the foot. It happened about 0945 this morning: We lost power in the A.F. office for about half an hour. In and of itself, that’s not bad. “Bad” was, when the power was restored, some systems decided that they didn’t want to come back online. Getting them kicked into gear took an additional forty minutes. *sigh* Hopefully, the rest of the day will conform… or be cast out.

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

“Summer’s going fast, nights growing colder…”

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Monday – 14 September 2009
Nothing like having The Leash start going off at 0800… just as you’re getting ready to head to the office. It was alerting me to a problem with an off-site server. Yay. We contacted the appropriate people – who seemed to be having issues of their own – and they handled it. Eventually. Welcome to Monday.

Yesterday was a good day. It was also chock full o’ stuff. Mark and Alex – a member of the SUU Ballroom Dance Team who came up to assist in the dance lessons – came up about 2:30. First, they worked with SaraRules and Steve for the Father/Daughter dance, then it they spent time with SaraRules and me for our first dance. It was more fun and less fearsome than I had expected. (And, we fortunately we have three weeks to practice…)

After that, SaraRules, Alex, Mark and I headed over to the in-laws-to-be for dinner: Bratwurst and football. Excellent combination. More on football in a minute. After dinner, Steve transferred the video of our dance practice to DVD for us – we need to have some kind of reference for practice, after all.

Football Update
Yesterday was the Ravens’ season opener at home.

Kansas City Chiefs at Baltimore Ravens
24 – 38

They tried to give me heart failure in the second and third quarters… and I wasn’t even watching the game, per se. In this market, CBS broadcast the Minnesota-Cleveland game, so I had to “watch” the GameCenter on NFL.com.  Granted, it was nice to see the Vikings hand the Browns a beatdown, but I would have rather seen the Ravens play. Because, let’s face it: Who wouldn’t want to see Ray Lewis break a little something off like this in real time…

…or watch as QB Joe Flacco goes and dials in 303 yards passing and 4 yards rushing, as the Ravens put up a total of 501 yards of total offense!? Crazy. How does that make you feel, Ray?

Yeah, I thought so.

Elsewhere around the league:

Miami Dolphins at Atlanta Falcons
7 – 19
Oh, well.. at least there are 16 more games in the season.

.

Philadelphia Eagles at Carolina Panthers
38 – 10
Ditto.

.

Denver Broncos at Cincinnati Bengals
12 – 7
Sorry, and .

.

Minnesota Vikings at Cleveland Browns
34 – 20
Congrats, … and
Congrats Commiserations, .

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

“Easy Like Sunday Morning…”

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Sunday – 13 September 2009
I was up later than I had planned to be last night/this morning; I was preparing and posting my auctions on eBay. They’ll kick off this evening and hopefully, by the end of the week, I’ll be a few ‘Clix lighter. (One can hope, can’t they…?)

This morning, we’re up and getting ready to meet our…. BUM BUM BUMMMM… dance instructor for our wedding dances. Mark Baker, SaraRules’ former classmate at SUU and the Director of Ballroom Dance at SUU, is choreographing our first dance and the father-daughter dance as our wedding present. (It’s nice to be able to “open” presents before the event!)

And then, there’s football! The Raven’s take on the Chiefs today. I doubt that the game will be broadcast here and we don’t have DirecTV and Sunday Ticket, but I can track the stats on NFL.com, if nothing else.

Stray Toasters

Right on to the friction of the day…

Namaste.

“Well I guess we all have these feelings we can’t leave unreconciled…”

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Friday – 11 September 2009
Today not only marks the end of the (work) week, but it’s the eighth anniversary of the attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

For my thoughts on the matter, I once again refer readers here.

Today’s an “on” day.
And I have The Leash this week.
Happiness and joy.

That’s right… I just broke out a haiku. Bow down.

Football Update
The NFL 2009 season kicked off with the Tennesee Titans heading to Heinz Field to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Tennessee Titans at Pittsburgh Steelers
10 – 13

It was a good game.  A seriously solid, well-played game. The defenses of both teams definitely earned their paychecks this week. The game was scoreless until late in the second half, when both offenses woke up and remembered what it was they were there to do. Excellent way to start the season… despite the fact that the Steelers won.

Four-Color Coverage
MarknTyme has come down with a case of “Life Happens,” which in this case means that he’s whipping his high school band into fighting shape. Because of this, he won’t be helping out with FCC for the near term. With that in mind, I’ll probably have a new (and solo) FCC to post sometime this weekend.

Stray Toasters

  • Twenty-two days.
  • I see a red door
    And I want to paint it black…
  • As I haven’t posted it in a while: Skippy’s List
  • just hooked us up with Irish Creme lollipops. (I know…!) They’re pretty tasty. He got them from Lollyphile.
  • What’s that you say..? Craig Ferguson has something to say about South Carolina Congressman Mike Duvall? Tell me more!

    …and…

  • PopCultureShock has some nice comic-related wallpapers.
  • IAAF urges caution over Semenya intersex claims
    And, I’m Ivory Soap-sure that this line wasn’t intended to be as pun-laden as it appears to me:

    South Africa will fight back if Semenya is excluded from further competition, Stofile said, adding, “It will be a third world war.”

    I don’t know if South Africa (or just parts of it) are considered to have “Third world” status, but is the reporter (unintentionally) saying that it would be a war of third world nations…?

  • David Lynch, window-dresser
  • Unearthing Solomon Grundy
  • Motorola’s comeback attempt rests on software
    Don’t call it a comeback
    [They’ve] been here for years

Tonight: SaraRules and I are attending Utah Symphony’s An Evening of Beethoven.  (Tickets are still available…)

Namaste.

Labor Day Weekend Update

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Monday – 07 September 2009
It’s been a good four-day weekend. There have been just about equal rounds of productivity and laziness. That makes for a good weekend, I think.

<< Rewind <<
After running errands on Friday – one of which took me to the office… twice! – I had a quiet afternoon and evening. Clitorati was good, both the company and the conversations. Also of note: Borders’ Cafe now has a Hazelnut Mocha, which is pretty tasty.

Saturday, SaraRules and I got up, went out for breakfast and headed to…


(click for pictures)

It was a few days shy of the second anniversary of our second date… which also happened to be at Hogle Zoo. We got to see the new Amur Tiger and Snow Leopard cubs, as well as a giraffe calf.

After the zoo, we had lunch, stopped in to see Kate, Perry and the kids and then hooked up with some of the usual suspects to check out Gamer. I thought it was a decent – but not awesome – movie, that made a couple of interesting points about gamer culture and society. SaraRules did not like this movie. In fact, she said that she’d consider seeing either The Spirit or Transformers: RotF again before seeing this again… and she hated both of them. That said, if you’re looking for much more than shoot-em-up fare, you might want to skip this one.

Saturday evening was quiet, with SaraRules doing some quilting and me cutting new tiles for new WWG maps.

Sunday, SaraRules got up early-ish to go help her father work on the new/replacement deck he’s building. I got up a little later and headed over to help. We got the deck and the lower trim finished; I’m not sure if the next step will be railings or steps. Fortunately, it’s not my decision to make – I’m just there for the heavy lifting. After the deck-building, I popped into Paragon City for a little bit. As of a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been a CoH member for four years. Where does the time go? After gaming, we (SaraRules, the in-laws-to-be, and I) watched The Mist. Not bad, if a little cheesy at points. And the ending…? Well, let’s just say that it wasn’t “completely” telegraphed, but you could see the proverbial writing on the wall.

> Play >
Today, we slept in. After breakfast, we set about doing a bit of cleaning. (The dining room looks like a “room” again, not just a storage depot.) Next up, we visited the Utah Museum of Natural History. SaraRules hadn’t been there in many moons and I had never been. It was a nice place. Their featured exhibit is called “Toadally Frogs,” which reminded us of a smaller version of the exhibit we saw at the National Aquarium in Baltimore last year. After that, we had dinner at Charlie Chow’s. (A huge “Thanks!” to SaraRules for taking one for the team so that I could have Chinese food!)

Tomorrow, back to the work-a-day grind.

Stray Toasters

That’s good for now.

Namaste.

“Tuesday afternoon, I’m just beginning to see, now I’m on my way…”

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Tuesday – 01 September 2009
First day of the month; the year is just moving right along. And, to top it all off, this heads up a short week, too. I’m trying to decide whether it’s going to be a four- or five-day weekend. I’m sorely tempted to take next Tuesday off, as well. We shall see.

Last night was my night to cook dinner. I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do when I left work; by the time I got home, I had not only an idea… I had a plan, as well. I fired up the grill and set about putting my insidious plot in motion. I thawed a couple of chicken breasts, made a dry rub for them, applied said seasoning and then slapped ’em on the grill. Next up, a can of cream of mushroom soup went on the stove. When the soup was ready, I added two cups of rice and let it sit. Back to the bird. While waiting for the chicken to cook through, I watched Monday Night Football through the screen door. When the chicken was done, I brought it inside, pulled a green leaf salad out of the fridge and it was dinner time.  I was pleased with how well the chicken turned out – nicely spiced on the outside, tender and juicy inside.

After the game, SaraRules quilted for a bit while I surfed and geeked.

Football Update
The Vikings traveled to The Lone Star State to take on the Texans in Reliant Stadium.

Minnesota Vikings at Houston Texans
17 – 10

This game had a few notable features:

  1. Minnesota QB Brett Favre, under center, for the first half three quarters of the game.
  2. RB Adrian Peterson (yes, that one).  ‘Nuff said.
  3. RB Chester Taylor put up a number of good runs for the Vikings offense.
  4. Texans’ QB Matt Shaub looked decent… but a little fragile, at times.

This was  good (preseason) Monday night game. Both teams showed up to play. Favre, only scheduled to play the first half, stayed in the game through most of the third quarter. He looked good on the field – solid passes, set up good runs and even threw a couple of blocks.

One more week of preseason and then the real deal kicks off.  Amen.

Workout
Wes and I got in a late workout today… but that’s still better than no workout at all!

  • Calf Raises: 3 sets/10 reps, 100 lbs
  • Sit-ups (with twist): 3 sets/20 reps
  • T-Bar Pull (barbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 85 lbs
  • Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps each, 225 lbs/205 lbs/185 lbs
  • Compound Row: 3 sets/12 reps, 125 lbs
  • Chest Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 95 lbs
  • Lat Pulldowns: 3 sets/10 reps, 120 lbs
  • Fly: 3 sets/10 reps – 2 sets @ 100 lbs, 1 set @ 120 lbs

Weight (morning): 183.0 lbs

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

“Cartoon capers happen in reality…”

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Monday – 31 August 2009
It’s not only the first of the work week; it’s the last day of August.

It was a good – and relatively quiet/lazy – weekend. Saturday, after hanging out with Perry, I headed home and just chilled. When SaraRules came home from her bridal shower, she took some time to tell me how it went and show me what she had received. It sounded like it was quite a bit of fun (independently verified later by shockpuppet). A little later, we strolled over to Target and Red Mango; I’m getting used to the original (plain) yogurt flavor, but I still miss the Green Tea flavor.

Back at home, I started working on my ‘Clix house, while SaraRules quilted and put on a movie. She had pulled up Lifeboat on Netflix Instant Queue. I stopped working on the house and watched the movie. It is the story of nine survivors of a torpedo attack against a Merchant Marine ship in a lifeboat, adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. Add to the mix one German naval officer (from the sub that fired the torpedo and was subsequently sunk). Short on food. Short on water. And tempers and attitudes getting shorter by the day. The movie provided an interesting look at the lengths people would go to in order to survive.

Sunday, I slept in. Way in. 1100 in. (Of course, given that I didn’t get to bed until after 0400, it’s not a stretch.) After lounging about for hours, I got in gear. I did a little cleaning and then set about taking pics of the now-complete ‘Clix house (link to full gallery is just below the thumbnails). I stopped at Beans & Brews for a cup of frozen mocha goodness before heading up to SaraRules’ parents’ for dinner and football. After the game, we headed home and watched part of the “Caves” episode Planet Earth.

Football Update
The Ravens played the Panthers on Saturday… and won. They’re now 3-0 in preseason. I know most people don’t think that preseason play really counts much, but I’m not one of those people.

Yesterday’s match-up pitted the Chicago Bears against the Denver Broncos, in Denver.

Chicago Bears at Denver Broncos
27 – 17

This game had a few notable features:

  1. Jay Cutler’s return to Denver, following his trade to Chicago.
  2. Kyle (Go Boilers!) Orton’s first game against the Bears since his trade to Denver.
  3. Chicago RB Adrian Peterson. (No, not that one… this one.)

I don’t know where Chicago’s been keeping their Adrian Peterson, but his performance last night was impressive. When Chicago needed yards on a short run, he was there. Long run…? He was there. He came up with 68 yards in 12 carries. Yeah, looks like someone is looking for a first string slot.

*** In a “You Heard It Here First” prognostication: Given Mr. Peterson’s performance – and how he performs in the next preseason game and during the regular season – I am willing to bet that you will be seeing some “Adrian Peterson (CHI) vs. Adrian Peterson (MIN)” ads in the next few weeks.

Stray Toasters

Namaste.