Talking to Myself Again

I'm a Scaredy Cat. With Good Reason, Apparently.

mood: relaxed
music: silence

Whenever Lando is introduced to a new situation, such as when we went to the ice rink with the Funshop group, he tends to want to hang back, suck his thumb, and just watch for awhile (perhaps a very long while) until he becomes comfortable with the situation. I'm pretty much the same way. Except for the thumb sucking bit.

Recently, I've been trying to move out of my comfort zone a bit.

Adventures in Walking Downtown

The other day the local skeptics group had our monthly meeting at the library. Because the library closes at 9:00, we quite often don't have much time to discuss whatever video or speaker we had at the meeting. I wanted to try something a bit different this time, encouraging people to meet at a local tavern or restaurant after the meeting for additional discussion.

I've lived in Springfield for over 20 years, but I'm really not very familiar with downtown. I don't live there, I don't work there, and I don't shop there. On those occasions when I do go downtown, I tend to go a specific place, do what I went there to do, and then leave.

Only very rarely have I walked around downtown a little bit. When I do, it tends to be in the evening, when pretty much everything is closed, and it always feels like a bit of an adventure. It's dark, there aren't many people out, and it feels just slightly dangerous. I peer into shops as I pass, looking at flyers posted in the windows that advertise presumably very exciting activities that I'd never heard of before. When you're driving from point A to point B, flyers in store windows can't get much attention.

So the other night, after the meeting, I walked all of 2½ blocks from the library to Gallina's Pizza. It was very exciting! Eating at an actual non-chain restaurant, where I didn't know in advance what was on the menu (okay, pizza) or what the decor looked like! I am so bold!

Here's a very quick review of Gallina's Pizza: The sausage pizza wasn't anything special, but they give you a lot of it for not much money!

Of course, it wasn't exactly part of a 100-mile diet (which I haven't started yet anyway), but it was at least breaking the familiar chain restaurant habit.

Adventures in Riding the Bus

Another example of something innocuous that I haven't risked yet is riding the bus. Yes, really. If you've ridden the bus before, you're probably scratching your head at this point and wondering what the big deal is. I was sure that riding the bus is easy, but there are various details that they seem to just presume that everyone knows.

For example:

1. Where can I get on the bus? Yes, I know I can get on the bus at a bus stop, but how do I know where the bus stops are, other than by driving around and looking for them? Can I get on at any place other than a bus stop?
2. How do I signal the driver that I want to get on the bus?
3. How do I pay? Is there a machine that I slip the money into or a box that I drop it into or do I hand it to the driver?
4. Where can I get off of the bus? Again, I know I can get off of the bus at a bus stop, but can I get off of the bus anywhere else?
5. How do I signal the driver that I want to get off of the bus?
6. Because I'm going from the west side of town to the north side of town, I'll have to transfer from one bus to another. How can I be sure that the bus I start on will make it to the transfer station before the next bus leaves?
7. How closely to the schedule do the buses tend to run?

However, being the environmentally conscious guy that I claim to try to be, I felt that I really ought to stop saying "mass transit is a good idea" and actually give it a try. So I began looking for some answers to my questions.

Some research on the Internet partly answered question #1, at least in part. According to the SMTD web site, you can get on the bus at a bus stop or at a street corner, just not in the middle of the block.

Reading on web sites of other bus districts, I found one mention of raising your arm to signal the driver, then keeping your arm raised until the driver indicates that your signal was seen. Okay, that's the answer to question #2, although I wasn't sure how the driver would signal back.

I knew the answer to question #3 because I had taken Lando on the Funshop bus ride last fall. In the case of SMTD buses, there's a box that you drop cash in.

I wasn't sure about the answer to question #4, but I suspected that you could get off at any street corner. I didn't particularly care, however, because where I was getting off, there was a bus stop.

Searching on the Internet gave me a few answers to question #5. Depending on the bus, you either pull on a cord above the window, press a button on the wall, or just tell the driver where you want to get off (possibly just by standing up and looking expectant, although that's not certain to work).

Questions #6 and #7 were still uncertainties. Would the schedule of the first bus put me at the transfer point in time to catch the second bus?

In addition to all of these questions, I had an additional hurdle: I could see that there was a bus stop a few blocks from my house, but it wasn't on the system map on the SMTD web site. I eventually called SMTD and learned that the bus stop near my house is on the Harrison Park route, which is not one of the 13 core routes. The system map shows the 13 core routes, but not the 2 supplemental routes. (Note to SMTD: Show the non-core routes on your system map if you want anyone to actually know that they exist.)

In Springfield, even the core bus lines only run every 30 minutes. That means, if you miss the bus, it will be another 30 minutes before the next one shows up. It also means that, if your work hours are 8:00-4:00 and the bus goes by your work at 8:05 and 3:55, you either have to hope the boss doesn't notice you arriving late and leaving early, or you have to arrive at work 25 minutes early and leave work 25 minutes late. In my case, if my reading of the bus schedule is correct, the bus arrives at work shortly before 8:00 and leave very shortly after 4:00. Specifically, it seems to pass by work at about 4:02, so I'd have to head at the door right at 4:00 so that I won't miss it.

Also, the bus schedules show what time the buses leave the transfer point, but they don't show what time the buses arrive at the transfer point. My estimate was that the Harrison Park bus would get to the transfer point just about the time the 9th Street bus was leaving. A few minutes early, and things would work out. A few minutes late, and I'd have a 30 minute wait for the next 9th Street bus. Hmm....

I decided to give it a try on Monday and see whether it would work. Besides, I reasoned, they probably arrange the schedule such that all of the buses show up at the transfer point at the same time, specifically so that you could transfer to the next bus. (Duh!) That would answer question #6!

Normally, I try to leave for work about 7:30, which gives me plenty of time to stroll into work a few minutes before 8:00. That's what I try to do. It seldom seems to work out that way these days. If I leave no later than 7:40, I can (usually) get to work just at 8:00. So let's split the difference and call it 25 minutes driving.

The Harrison Park bus passes near here about 7:18 or so. However, I have to walk from my house to the route, which takes a little under 10 minutes. The 9th Street bus passes right by my work at just about 8:00. So, that basically means door-to-door in about 52 minutes. Hmm.... Well, that's a bit longer than I would like, but that's okay. I can just relax and read a book during the ride.

As I was showering yesterday morning, however, I began thinking about the fact that it also means about 52 minutes to get home. I don't mind getting up a little early to go to work, but when I'm done working, I'd rather be home with my family than sitting in a bus. Oh, well.

It was a bit cold yesterday morning (about 25), but not bitterly so. I bundled up and headed for the bus stop. A few minutes after I got there, I saw the bus approaching. I stuck up my arm to signal the driver, then held it up there until I saw the hazard lights start flashing, indicating an impending stop. Okay, now I knew the full answer to question #2.

When I got on the bus, I was the only rider. I wasn't too surprised by that. I've often seen near-empty buses going by and wondered how they could afford to keep running. After a couple of minutes a 50-something man got on. Several minutes after that, a teenager got on, and a few minutes after that a middle-aged woman. That was it. 4 passengers. I guess that's why this is considered a supplemental route!

As I rode I looked to see what sort of system would be used to signal the driver that you wanted to stop. There was neither a cord above the window, nor a button to press. Instead, there was a sign saying "Push tape to signal stop" next to a long black strip. Okay, now I knew the answer to question #5! (Gosh, I'm learning so much! But why couldn't I find this information on the SMTD web site?)

We rode on and I pulled out my cell phone to check the time. It was 7:46. Uh oh. The 9th Street bus would have left at 7:45. Crap. We arrived at the transfer point and there was just one bus there, which pulled away moments after I got off the Harrison Park bus. So much for my theory that they scheduled things so that all of the buses were at the transfer point at the same time!If I waited for the next 9th Street bus, it wouldn't show up until 8:15. Add to that how much time it would take for it to make it to my work, and it looked like I'd be getting there about 8:30. Crap.

On the other hand, I could probably walk and beat the bus. Besides, if I walked up 9th Street and the bus caught up with me, I could just spend an extra dollar and take the bus the rest of the way.

So I bundled up and started walking. It was cold, but not terribly so. Mid- to upper-20s. And I have a very warm coat, warm gloves, and a nice warm hat that Dawn knitted for me. (Thanks, Dawn!) I got to work at 8:25, arriving before the bus did.

Okay, so taking the bus to work didn't work so well. But I still needed to take the bus home from work that evening. Hopefully that would go better!

In my observations on Friday, the bus seemed to pass by my work at about 2 minutes after the hour. I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss it, so just to be safe I decided I would skip out about 5 minutes early, just to be sure. I closed down my PC, put on my coat, grabbed my briefcase, and stepped outside.

And there was the bus. It showed up 5 minutes before the hour! Crap. I ran across the street and down the block, getting to the door just in the nick of time!

Being one of the core buses, this one had quite a few riders. I would guess 15-20 or so. After a fairly short trip, we reached the transfer point and I got off. There were 9 buses idling there, all waiting for riders. Just not the Harrison Park bus.

From this, I finally figured out what the difference is between a core route and a supplemental route. The core routes, in addition to running more frequently, are all scheduled such that they are at the transfer point at the same time. The supplemental routes are not. Doh! Again, couldn't they have explained that somewhere on their web site? *sigh*

So I settled down and waited for the Harrison Park bus, which showed up at about 4:25. When I boarded the bus, I noticed that nobody else had been waiting for it. We sat there for about 5 minutes, but nobody else got on. And nobody got on during the ride home.

If it wasn't for me, the driver would have had an empty bus.

After I got off the bus, I then had a short walk home, arriving at about 4:50, about 25-30 minutes later than I would normally get there.

So, what did I learn from this adventure, aside from how to ride the bus?

First and foremost, I learned that riding the bus just won't work for me in my current situation. If the Harrison Park bus were one of the core routes, then it might work. Since it isn't, it only runs about every 45 minutes and it doesn't arrive at the transfer station at the same time as the other buses. Also, even if I could take the bus to work, taking the bus home from work would be a problem, because it apparently sometimes passes by my workplace before quitting time. If the bus ran every 15 minutes, I might be willing to wait for the next one, but since it only runs every 30 minutes, that's not practical.

If I were working downtown (so that I didn't need to transfer to another bus), taking the bus would probably work fine. Even with the transfer, if Harrison Park were a core route, taking the bus would probably work fine if the bus didn't happen to pass by my work place shortly before quitting time. Because it's on a 30 minute schedule, even shifting my work schedule by 30 minutes wouldn't help!

The Catch-22 is that, in order for the buses to run more frequently, more people would have to take the bus, but in order for more people to take the bus, the buses would have to run more frequently. I recently heard a story on NPR about a city bus system where the buses ran every 10 minutes or so. As a result, it was more convenient for people to take the bus, easier to make connections, and less risky if you happened to miss the bus. Of course, in order to get that level of service, they needed a fair number of riders to begin with. Again, a Catch-22!

I'm still a supporter of mass transit. This just shows me that it needs more support to really work! (Or maybe it's an indication that I live too far out in the suburban sprawl and should be living closer to downtown, but that's a post for another day.)

Postscript

After my adventure of being late to work due to not understanding the bus schedule, this morning I was greeted by 2 nearly-flat tires on my car, so I wound up being late again! Personal transportation comes with its own set of problems.

Cold Day, Cold Night

mood: stressed
music: distant crackle of fireplace

Well, this weekend sucked.

Let start with the weather. Today it was cold and rainy. I guess that beats yesterday, when it was even colder and icy. Dawn slid into a curb, trying to avoid sliding into the car in front of her, and did some minor damage to the hubcap. Nothing like that today, so I guess it was an improvement, but cold and rainy still makes for a rather dreary atmosphere. Added to that it was very windy, so despite the not-as-cold temperature, it felt cold.

Anyway, we wanted to see the Gypsy Guerrilla Band at the Dana-Thomas House. Lando slept in until 9:30 today, so we figured we could try to sneak it in before his nap.

Big mistake.

First off, despite having lived in Springfield for more than 21 years now, I had never been to the Dana-Thomas House, so I wasn't sure what to expect. (For those who don't know, the DTH is a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright between 1902 and 1904. It's something like 12,000 square feet, plus a 4,000 square foot carriage house.)

It turns out that you don't just wander through the house, but instead go on a tour that lasts about an hour. In our case, the tour lasted about 3 minutes. Tours start every 20 minutes, and given the weather and the time of day (1:30 on a Sunday), we were the only ones on our tour. While watching the 7 minute video that marks the start of the tour, Lando started sucking his thumb and saying he wanted something to drink. Uh oh. That's Lando-speak for "I'm getting tired and could use a nap".

Well, we started the tour of the house, which was decorated up beautifully for Christmas. In the very first room, we could hear Jim Lillquist playing the hammer dulcimer and pointed out the sound to Lando. The tour guide asked whether we wanted to tour the house first or stop to see "our friends" (meaning the Gypsy Guerrilla Band). We said we would tour the house first, but then Lando turned very cranky, not wanting to leave the room, so we said we'd see the GGB first. Lando still didn't want to leave the first room. I picked him up to physically carry him up the stairs to the musicians' gallery, at which point Lando began having a meltdown.

We went upstairs to the musicians' gallery, me with a screaming toddler in my arms. Jim and Joyce Lillquist were there, dressed in their period costumes and playing beautiful music on the hammer dulcimer and autoharp. We spent about 30 seconds there, saying basically, "wonderful music, we'll be back some other time" and left.

End of tour.

During Lando's nap, I decided to make a fire in the fireplace. Nice! After Lando's nap, I noticed that it was a bit nippy in the rest of the house. I knew that a fire in a fireplace tended to cool down the rest of the house (due to air currents), but when I checked the thermostat, it said that it was 66 degrees! The furnace had been running continuously, but when I held my hand over the vent, I noticed a distinct lack of warmth in the air coming out. The blower was blowing, but no heat!

So, as I speak, Dawn and Lando are settling down for a night on the floor in front of the fireplace. I'll be joining them right after I post this.

Lastly, Marta's red blood cell count is dropping, which probably means a trip to Champaign to the U of I College of Veterinary Medicine for more tests, including one to see whether the cancer has spread to her bone marrow.

Oh, and I forgot to post yesterday, ending my streak. :-(

Gypsy Guerrilla Band at the Dana-Thomas House!

mood: excited
music: baby monitor

I just happened upon a bit of good news! It turns out that the Gypsy Guerrilla Band is playing at the Dana-Thomas House several times during the month of December!

Here's the schedule, taken from their web site:

GGB Dana-Thomas House Concert Schedule

12/2 & 12/9	1:30-4:00
12/15-16	1:30-4:30
12/21	5:15-8:30
12/22	6:00-8:30
12/23	1:30-3:30
12/29-30	1:30-4:30

Cool! I always enjoy listening to the Gypsy Guerrilla Band play, and every time I see Jim Lillquist play the hammer dulcimer I have the urge to buy one and learn how to play it. Unfortunately, when we see them at renfairs, we often don't have much time to stop and listen for long, due to the presence of a certain 2-year-old.

Since this is here in Springfield, we should be able to listen as long as we like! Here's the description of the event from the Dana-Thomas House web site:

Each year the Dana-Thomas House celebrates the holiday season in the grand manner of Mrs. Dana. The house is beautifully decorated and live music is performed on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Evening tours are available on three special days to enjoy the house and art glass under different lighting. Special activities include Children’s Story Hour in the Library, Family Night and Luminaria Sunday when 1000 candles in paper sacks line the ledges and walkways around the house.

Based on that description, I'm not sure whether this is a "sit down for a concert" type of thing or a "walk around while live music is played in the background" type of thing. In any case, we'll try to make it!

Getting Caught Up ... Again

mood: sleepy
music: baby monitor

Once again, I've got 2 weeks of stuff to discuss in a single entry. You know what would be a better idea? Posting daily! Seriously, it would be great! Each evening, I could write about what happened on that very day while it was still fresh in my memory! Better yet, since not all that much happens to me on any given day, I would have plenty of time to ramble on and on about it in a humorous fashion! Well, I'm not sure whether I could do the humorous bit, but I am pretty confident that I could handle rambling.

Before that, however, here's a Reader's Digest Condensed Version of the last 2 weeks.

Wednesday, November 14: Normally this would be Funshop night. Actually, it was Funshop night. However, Lando was sick with a cold, so it was Funshop night without us, and without us, does it really count? I suspect the Funshop staff just canceled the evening when they realized that we weren't there.

Thursday, November 15: Nothing happened on this day. It might as well have not existed. Now that I look at my calendar, I see that there's a blank hole where that date should be. I apparently was abducted by aliens and had unspeakable yet completely forgettable things done to me on that day, because I remember nothing about it. Odd.

Wait! I just remembered what we did! First, we worked on cleaning up the house in preparation for a visit by Dad & Pat. Then, since we had the floor relatively cleared of cars, pillows, swords, games, stuffed animals, bowling pins, more cars, trains, more stuffed animals, magazines, newspapers, unidentifiable snacks, and so forth, I suggested that we take that opportunity to put up the Christmas tree. Not decorate it; just put it up, to claim the space. So we did that, violating our sacred vows never to put up Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving. Oh, the shame!

Friday, November 16: Our cat Marta went to the vet again for her weekly CBC blood test. She had her second chemo treatment for liver cancer on a week earlier, so they wanted to check her blood. As expected, the chemo treatment had caused her white blood cell count to drop, leaving her susceptible to infection, so they gave Dawn some antibiotics. Well, they didn't give Dawn the antibiotics; they gave Dawn the antibiotics. To give to the cat! Understand? Well then you figure out how to phrase that sentence if you're so smart!

Saturday, November 17: Dad & Pat arrived from Texas to visit for a bit. Every year Pat goes home to Murphysboro to do the Thanksgiving thing with her kids, so the weekend before they came up to visit us. The good part was that we got to visit with Dad & Pat, who we don't get to see very often, given that San Benito, Texas is over 1300 miles away. The bad part was that this was the same weekend as Crystal Ball, so Dawn & I had to miss that.

"Hey, Wally! What is Crystal Ball?" Glad you asked! Crystal Ball is an annual event held by the Barony of Shattered Crystal. ("Hey, Wally! What is the Barony of Shattered Crystal?" It's the Belleville, Illinois branch of the SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism. "Hey, Wally! What is the Society for Creative Whatchamacallit?" It's an international group of people that recreate the Middle Ages, sort of like Renaissance festivals do, but with everyone participating. Are you done asking questions yet? "Yeah, I think so." Good. Now, where was I?)

Crystal Ball features an entire day of dance classes, with something like 10 different classrooms being used concurrently, so that you have a wide selection of dances to learn. After spending the day learning dances, there is a feast in the evening, followed by the actual ball itself, which runs way, way, way past midnight, typically ending sometime around 3 in the morning.

If you enjoy Medieval dancing (which Dawn & I do), then I've not heard of a better event, certainly not within easy driving distance.

Of course, with a nearly-3-year-old, things get a bit more complicated. If we had gone, we probably would have had to come up with some sort of babysitting arrangement, either leaving him with someone here, or going with someone who could take turns keeping him entertained. By next year, when he's a nearly-4-year-old, we might be able to just tell him, "Stay here, play quietly, and don't chop off anything that can't be easily reattached." We'll see.

Also, there would normally be a meetup of the Springfield Area Freethinkers on that day, but (1) they were going to Chicago's Field Museum to see the Charles Darwin exhibit; and (2) we weren't. Why does everything seem to happen at the same time?

Sunday, November 18: When Dad & Pat show up in mid-November, we always drag them to the Festival of Trees, a fund-raiser for the Memorial Medical Center Foundation. ("Hey, Wally! What's the Memorial Medical Center Foundation?" I've no idea. All I know is they charge us $4 to look at their Christmas trees. Presumably they're doing something useful, or at least legal, with the money.) I'm still posting photos from the event, but here's one of Lando with Little Cindy Lou Who:

And here's Dad & Pat checking out the gingerbread houses:

Monday, November 19: Another alien abduction. My mind is a blank.

Tuesday, November 20: My original plan for this day was to attend the monthly Liberty Brew & View, where we would be watching Harlan County USA. It's a documentary about a coal miners' strike in Kentucky in 1973. Will Reynolds said it was his favorite documentary, but for some mysterious reason I just wasn't that interested.

Okay, I just remembered part of the reason for my relative lack of interest. I also remembered what I was doing Monday evening.

I decided to play a video game.

More specifically, I hadn't played any sort of D&D-style computer role-playing game for quite a few years, so I decided to pull one out and play for a bit.

First, I dug out the disks for Baldur's Gate II and installed it. Copyright date: 2000. I can safely say that my computer far surpassed all of the recommended specs for the game. Actually, the game hadn't heard of a CPU faster than 600MHz and didn't trust a screen resolution greater than 800x600. Support for 1024x768 was considered experimental, and support for 1680x1050 was unheard of.

After playing Baldur's Gate II for a little bit, I decided to abandon that and instead play Neverwinter Nights. Copyright date: 2002. Again, I can safely say that my computer far surpasses all of the recommended specs for that game. However, it was a very significant advance over Baldur's Gate II, at least in terms of the graphics. It even supported 1680x1050 screen resolution! So I buried myself deep into Neverwinter for a bit (instead of posting something on my blog, I might add).

Now I'm curious as to what the state of the art is in D&D-style computer role-playing games these days. I might even go buy a game that strains the ability of my computer to run it. (Say, copyright date 2006.) However, I think I still have quite a few hours of enjoyment left in Neverwinter Nights before I think about spending more money. Besides, given how long I go between gaming sessions, it might be years before I finish the game!

Wednesday, November 21: Normally, this would be Funshop night. However, because the next day was Thanksgiving, there was no Funshop scheduled. Or perhaps they just didn't want to face the disappointment of us not showing up again. When we go for a week or two without attending Funshop, then when we finally make it, Lando stays very focused on getting in as much playtime as possible! Tomorrow is Funshop night again, so this will be the first time he's been back in 3 weeks. I expect we'll be scrambling all over that room to keep up with him!

Thursday, November 22: Happy Thanksgiving! Naturally, I had the day off. We had made plans to have Thanksgiving dinner with GM & Rosie on Saturday, so we didn't do anything special on Thanksgiving itself. However, partly because of Lando's recent interest in football and partly because watching football is a traditional Thanksgiving day activity, Dawn suggested that we do so. Of course, by the time we remembered this, it was Thursday evening, so we almost missed it! Anyway, I turned on the TV to watch a football game -- just 2 weeks after having watched the Colts play the Chargers in the first football game I had watched in years -- and found myself watching the Colts play the Falcons.

Have you ever had the experience of watching a single episode of some TV show, and then years later turning on the TV and finding yourself watching that exact same episode again? That's sort of what this felt like. And like before, Lando stayed interested for about one quarter -- throwing himself to the ground on every play. After that, he was ready to do something else, but I had to watch the other three quarters to find out who won!

Friday, November 23: Being a lazy, good for nothing state government employee, I had the Friday after Thanksgiving off. (I read that New Jersey's governor decided to end the practice of making the day after Thanksgiving a state holiday. Since Thanksgiving, for some strange reason, always falls on a Thursday, nobody wants to go to work on the Friday after. Even those who do go to work won't feel much motivation to get anything accomplished. You can argue that they shouldn't feel that way, but you'd be arguing against human nature.)

Marta went to the vet for another CBC.

That evening we went to the Festival of Trees again, this time with Eric, Patty, Sarah, and Rose. Our primary reason for going a second time was to watch the St. Andrew's Society of Central Illinois perform. Bagpipes, drums, Celtic dancers -- what's not to like? Actually, although Lando loves all of those things, he was a bit overwhelmed by the loudness of it all. Drums and bagpipes indoors, even in as large a building as the Orr Building, are very loud!

They take new dancers as young as 3, so perhaps someday Lando will give it a shot. Virtually all of the dancers are girls, so this would be a great way to meet women!

Saturday, November 24: We had our Thanksgiving dinner with GM & Rosie. I had turkey, dressing, gravy, etc. Dawn, being vegetarian, stuck to mashed potatoes, peas, sweet potatoes, etc. Lando, being 2, stuck to being picky about his food.

One thing we didn't do was attend Chambanacon, a little annual science fiction convention. It began in Champaign-Urbana (aka "Chambana", thus the name), being held in the Chancellor Hotel every year on the weekend after Thanksgiving. I would go most years, partly to attend the convention, but also to a large extent just as an excuse to revisit the UIUC campus (where I went to school) and the college town area.

However, a few years ago due to increasing rates being charged by the Chancellor Hotel, Chambanacon moved -- to Springfield. Umm... What? Well, that made it much more convenient for me to attend, but it also removed one of the main reasons for me to attend. Even before that, I think that over years the Chambanacon staff had grown a bit lazy, not doing anything to attract new people to convention and pretty much just coasting. As a result, Chambanacon had shrunk -- and aged. It lacked the energy that it had had at one time. True, they advertise it as a "relaxicon", but frankly I can relax much more cheaply at home.

This year, for whatever reason, Chambanacon returned to Champaign-Urbana, although this time to a different hotel ("The Historic Lincoln"). Perhaps we'll try it again next year and see whether it has begun to bounce back. Actually, I think I'd rather try one of the other science fiction conventions that are within a reasonable distance. We'll see.

Sunday, November 25: I don't remember much about what we did during the day, but that evening, right after Dawn gave Marta her antibiotic, Marta vomited up the pill in a pool of blood. This is not something that you want to see. We debated whether we should call the animal hospital that night, but we decided there probably wasn't really anything to be done until morning.

Monday, November 26: Dawn called the vet at 7:30 AM and told them that Marta had vomited blood the night before. They told her to bring Marta right in, so I stayed home with Lando while Dawn to Marta to the vet. They kept her there until 5:00 that evening, giving her fluids and so forth. Apparently the problem was the antibiotic, which really disagreed with Marta. The good news is that there is an alternative that doesn't involve shoving a pill down her throat twice a day. The bad news is that the alternative involves giving her a shot. Us. Giving her a shot. Correction: Dawn giving her a shot. I'll hold Marta, but sticking her with a needle? *shudder*

Despite all of the drama with the blood-vomiting cat, we did something fun that day: We went on a date! Yes! For probably the second time in 3 years, Dawn and I actually went to a movie! In a theater!

It was amazing! It was expensive! $9 for a ticket?! Yikes! I had thought $7.50 was pricey! Well, $18 for tickets, plus $19 for food, making a total of $37 for this date. And we didn't even go out to dinner! Oh well, it was fun anyway.

We went to see Enchanted, which I would probably give 4 stars out of 5, while Dawn would probably give it 5 stars. It had quite a few funny bits, but I had hoped they would do a little bit more with the "fish out of water" theme than they did. It was still a good movie, though.

And it was a date! Lando stayed with GM & Rosie, who kept him well entertained until we returned. Actually, from the way Rosie tells it, Lando pretty much played quietly until Dawn & I showed up, at which point he reverted to his normal hyperactive self. *sigh*

Tuesday, November 27: Dawn took Marta to the vet again, because they wanted to monitor her again for the day. They'll want to do the same tomorrow. Marta is really getting tired of us stuffing her in the cat carrier.

This evening I attended my first regular meeting of the Sangamon Valley Group, the local group of the Sierra Club. We had attended the potluck cookout in October (when Lando fell and got an enormous bump on his head, prompting an emergency room visit), but we hadn't attended a normal meeting before. GM had said that he was also going to be attending for the first time, but didn't show up. I don't know if something came up or if he just forgot about it. I did see a few people I knew -- Will Reynolds, of course, but also Larry Trutter (who I know from my Amiga and BBS days, as well as from REALL and the Springfield Area Freethinkers) and Chris Pearson (who I know just as an acquaintance from my work with GIS and ILGISA).

The evening's presentation by Bob Barewin was about going on Sierra Club trips, particularly service trips, where you go somewhere to work on building, repairing, or in some way improving a park. The specific example covered was a service trip to Canyonlands last spring, where they worked on surveying and documenting the Anasazi petroglyphs. It sounded quite interesting, although it would be a few years before we could go with Lando. He'd probably have to be a teenager before they would allow him to participate in something like that. We would like to go on some sort of a less ambitious camping trip in the next year or two, though.

Wednesday, November 28: Hey! We're caught up to the present! And it's way past my bedtime! I think I'll post this and turn in. Good night!

Zoolie Ghoulie

mood: tired
music: shh!

On Sunday we went to the Zoolie Ghoulie at Henson Robinson Zoo. This is their annual Halloween event, with lots of stops around the zoo where kids are given candy. Lando dressed in his knight costume and seemed to enjoy saying "trick or treat" and getting candy. He was a bit freaked out by the occasional adult dressed as (for example) a giant Elmo. Seeing the happy little guy on your TV screen is one thing. Seeing a 7-foot-tall version looming over you is something else entirely! Whenever we would come to one of these giant TV characters, I would pick Lando up and carry him, which seemed to help.

And of course, when you have a young kid, every trip to the zoo ends at the playground near the exit.

Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular

On Saturday we went to the 2nd annual Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular in Washington Park. The weather was perfect, and we parked in front of Eric & Patty's house so that we wouldn't have to deal with traffic. They had hundreds of jack-o-lanterns on display around the carillon area, along with a toddler-friendly trick-or-treat area called the Garden of the Goblins (set up inside the greenhouse).

This was Lando's first opportunity to go trick-or-treating, wearing the knight costume that Dawn made for him. He carried a little bag and went from stop to stop getting candy, as well as looking at the ghosts, spider webs, skeletons, and other spooky stuff. (They had a light turned on at each spooky thing, to make sure that it wasn't too spooky.) Last year he was a little too young to really get much out of it, but this year he was old enough to enjoy the trick-or-treating, as well as looking at all of the jack-o-lanterns. He also particularly enjoyed the glowstick that we bought for him - in part because it was a ring that he could skewer with his sword!

Our Obsessive Toddler

It's been a very long time since I've posted here. Nothing since December!

Well, Lando is now 2½ years old. He's running around like a nut, talking up a storm, and generally wearing us out!

After going to the Springfield Highland Games & Celtic Festival and watching Riverdance, he became very interested in Irish dancing. Well, very interested in jumping about and stomping his feet on the floor, which is basically a toddler's version of Irish dancing.

After watching Stomp, Blue Man Group, and Tartanic, he became very interested in drumming on everything in sight. I made a brief DVD of Tartanic's performance, which Lando demanded we play over and over and over.... He pretty much divided the world up into two parts -- drums and drumsticks.

When we went to to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, he watched jousting by the Hanlon-Lees Action Theater. We bought a DVD about them, and he demanded that we play it over and over and over.... Now he again divides the world up into two parts. Now everything is either a sword or a shield.

It remains to be seen what he'll be obsessively into next month. Apparently little kids do this because, being surrounded by so much that is new, once they figure something out, they enjoy doing that thing as a way to stop encountering still more stuff that is new and incomprehensible.

Hopefully we won't go insane from drumming and jousting before he moves on to the next thing!

Houses and Trains and Bears! Oh My! (And Tornadoes!)

One of the ironies of having an online journal is that, when my life is busy, I have no time to write about it; and when I have time to write, it's probably because there's not much going on in my life! That's just my way of saying, "Yes, I'm way behind on posting anything here." So let's start getting caught up!

Bears! (and Other Animals)

On Wednesday, March 1, we went to Henson Robinson Zoo. I had taken the afternoon off to babysit Lando while Dawn went to the doctor, and since the weather was nice, we decided to go to the zoo after he woke up from his nap. It was very nice weather, but unfortunately we failed to take into account the fact that, during the winter, the zoo closes at 4:00 on weekdays. It was 3:30 when we got there. Oops! Oh well, we figured Lando probably wouldn't put up with much more than that, so we went in anyway.

Orlando didn't pay too much attention to most of the animals, but he did find the monkeys quite interesting -- and vice versa, as you can see.

There was one unexpected benefit of showing up late -- a backstage pass to see the bears! When we got to the bears' exhibit, they were gone -- one of the zookeepers had just put them inside for the evening. She saw us, called us over, and let us into the building where the bears stay at night (at least during cold weather).

Mandy

She had just fed them, and we were close enough we could have reached out and touched the bears (if we were stupid enough to do so)! I asked whether they had been named and was told that the female is named Mandy, while the male is named Booboo -- at which point I said, "I'm so sorry, Booboo."

Booboo

One advantage of going to the zoo during cool weather is that many of the animals that are normally lethargic during the hot weather are quite active. The wolves, cougars, and even the wolverine were all out and running around. The wolverine in particular was extremely suspicious of me (or of my camera). He would stop and look at me; I would raise my camera; he would run away; I would lower my camera; he would come back; we'd repeat our dance all over again. Here's the best picture I got:

More zoo pictures are available in the photo gallery.

Houses!

On Saturday, March 4, we went to the Greater Springfield Home and Builders Show, held each year at this time in the Prairie Capital Convention Center. This is not to be confused with the Home Expo Building and Remodeling Show, held each year at this time in the Orr Building at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.

The former has apparently been running for 27 years. The latter started up a few years ago, operated by the Springfield Area Home Builders Association. (The SAHBA also does the Showcase of Homes each year in early summer. This year they'll be showing homes in Centennial Park Place June 16-25.) A few years ago they held their shows on the same weekend, in a spirit of cooperation. Nah, they didn't even try to claim that -- each show just ignored the existence of the other one. Luckily, the last couple of years they've run on different weekends. This year the Home Expo was held on February 24-26, while the Home and Builders Show was held on March 3-5. We had too much going on the first weekend, so we skipped that show and made it to the second one instead.

We were hoping that we would buy a house last Spring. Between being tired from having a new baby and Dawn not having a job, that plan got pushed back. We're now hoping that maybe we can buy a house this Fall, but.... Well, we'll see.

Trains!

On Sunday, March 5, we went to the Train Fair in the Illinois Building at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. When we were getting ready to go to this show, I was thinking that it seemed like the wrong time of the year. We went to last year's show, and it didn't seem like it had been a year ago. Plus I was thinking that last year's show had been held in the Orr Building, which is larger.

Sure enough, it turns out that this was a different train show than the one we had attended before. The other, called the Great Western and Atlantic Train Show, is held in early October and is larger. The Train Fair is much smaller and features more swap meet type stuff. In other words, it's a train show for model railroad enthusiasts by model railroad enthusiasts -- specifically, the Springfield Model Railroad Club.

Orlando, as expected, was fascinated by much of what he saw, although I think he found the little train that you could ride on to be the most interesting part, by far.

In addition to buying some train-themed T-shirts (one can never have too many T-shirts, apparently), I did make one purchase at the Train Fair. One of the tables had some old train magazines for sale. On top of the stack was a a manual for an old HO scale car racing set. I did a double-take when I saw it, because I recognized it!

The "Aurora Model Motoring Service Manual for Thunderjet 500 D.C. Motor Sets" was, as best as I can tell, the exact same racing set that I had when I was growing up. It even included the tiny folded insert that explained how to oil your racecar's motor! I quickly paid $3 to own a copy of a manual to a racing set that I know longer own.

Isn't nostalgia wonderful?

More train fair photos are in the photo gallery (and more will be added soon).

That's all for now! (Oh, the tornadoes? I'll talk about those later. The short version is we're fine and the house is undamaged.)

Six Months in One Post! How Efficient!

Hey, you! Wake up! Yes, shocking though it may be, I am actually writing a new entry. My last entry was way back on November 24, but I really haven't written very consistently since June of last year! Yeesh! A lot of that has to do with the fact that, in July, I launched The Skeptic News, which I update almost daily. Well, I finally decided to start posting again, so earlier this month I sat down and "cleaned house," as it were, moving old entries to the archive and getting things ready. I also began reading the journals of others again for the first time in quite a while. (What happened to Squirrel Bait's journal? It seems to be gone. Wah!) Today I read that The Mighty Kymm has begun working her way through the Open Pages webring in search of dead journals to remove. Looks like I've begun reviving this thing just in the nick of time!

So, what has happened since November?

December: Visited Dad and my brother Ross down in Texas over Christmas. When I did this two years ago, it was cold and rainy the entire time I was there. This time was better -- it wasn't rainy. Actually it did warm up a bit the last day that I was there, but nothing like the 85 degrees it had been before I arrived.

January: Nothing memorable.

February: In the November 17, I mentioned putting together a plan to completely change what I do at work. We held meetings, we modified the plan, etc., and finally submitted it to the Agency Information Management Steering (AIMS) committee. They examined it, held meetings, modified it, etc., and finally submitted it to the senior managers. They examined it, etc., and in February they approved it. Bravo! Success! Or so I thought. In actuality, they sent it back to the AIMS committee, saying, in effect, "sounds good, but give us more details." My section's manager, the chairman of the AIMS committee, then went on vacation, which takes us to....

March: The section manager returns and announces that he's taken a position elsewhere and will be gone in a week. All work in the AIMS committee grinds to a halt, due the the lack of a chairman. As for today, June 26, that's where things still are.

April: Nothing particularly memorable. I did attend the Illinois Geographic Information Systems Association (ILGISA) "GIS in Illinois" conference on April 20-22, but there's not much of interest to say about it. Oh, and Dain had a 5th birthday party on the 26th. I abandoned my traditional strategy of "buy a toy that's noisy" in favor of "buy a toy that will scare Mary out of her wits." Specifically, I got him a nature kit (for collecting bugs and stuff) and a bunch of plastic bugs.

May: REALL held its annual elections. I had been the secretary-treasurer for the last year, but the newsletter editor was getting too busy, so we swapped jobs this year. I had resigned as newsletter editor of the local SCA group earlier, luckily! Also, on May 15 I went to Springfield Highland Games and Celtic Festival. It was fun, but I left early because it began to rain. There was also a little movie called Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I went to see it about a week after it opened, with the idea that I could avoid the massive crush of people and still see it before I learned the entire story. The movie was about what I expected -- not as good as the first two, but not a total bomb. The special effects were fabulous, of course, but there was virtually no character development and I had some problems with several plot points. I'd probably give it 3 stars.

Somewhere in there, Dad came up and visited for a couple of days. He finally bought a modern computer! He had an old Commodore Amiga 500 for years and years -- 1 meg of memory, no hard drive. One of the things he had to take into account when buying a new system is that he travels a lot, spending months at a time in a trailer Texas and Colorado. That means not a lot of room, and the system needs to be able to handle getting bumped around a bit. I recommended getting a laptop, and showed him some stuff from Gateway's web site. He finally got very nice one, which I think is probably about perfect for what he wants. Of course, there's a huge learning curve to get over! Plus, finding an Internet Service Provider that would have a local access number in Texas, Colorado, and a tiny town in southern Illinois was another challenge! After some false starts, however, it turned out that the solution was simple -- AOL! That has the added bonus of being about as "user friendly" as you can get. He's already been in contact with former neighbors, relatives, etc. As best as I can tell he likes it.

I also talked to Dawn this month, in our typical "once every 6 months" manner. We're still planning on taking a trip to Canada this summer, and I still haven't made any firm plans! Actually, we did settle on one thing -- the dates August 21-29. Now we just need to pick an itinerary and a mode of travel, preferably sometime before August 20.