So.

I'm chilling at home eating dinner and watching Mythbusters when I realize that there is something increasingly noisy outside. As I scramble to press mute, I realize that this noise isn't a lawnmower, motorcycle, or jet engine but a full fledged MARCHING BAND. And it is coming down my street.

Now, I do not live on a main street in Naperville. (In fact, it's a small road between the train station and the park.) Today is not any sort of holiday. In fact, it is 7:42 on a Monday night.

And yet, I go to my front porch and sure enough, fronted by tween-age baton twirlers, is the Naperville community band, marching down the street.



Beware of the boy scouts

(x-posted to FB)

Last night, we were staying in. J doing work, me doing job research and "attending" a bridal shower via videocam when I got a text from a strange number in Seattle.

"Can Zach go to Hooters too?"

...

Possible responses:

"I don't think that's a very good idea..."
"No."
"Only if Zach is over 18"
"I think it would be best if you all went to Red Lobster instead."
"What for?"
"Yes."

What else could I text back?

But I want it.

This commercial is in "English", and has Japanese subtitles.

From blog photos

The cold is also bad for commuting. Three days of delayed METRA trains. I should bring my camera next week so you can see how packed the lower tracks and waiting rooms become. Because no one wants to be waiting out in the cold.

Also, glad this major derailment of 17 hazardous material freight cars didn't happen on my line. Because then, that would be a sign that I should just not go to work at all anymore.

Apparently I've used this subject line before because it populated itself when I began typing "Bad day..." in the subject.

So, as you know, I live in Naperville and I take the train into the city each day. My usual train is the 7:40 express, and days when I am lazy, I'll catch the 8:00. I am very glad that today I ran and caught the 7:40 because the 8:00 was stormed by police armed with semi-automatic weapons Apparently, some passengers had to have their hands up for 20 minutes while they searched all the cars for "someone with a gun" who turned out to be a secret service agent. (Apparently, he went to the ticket window at Naperville and asked if there were metal detectors on the train because he said he had a gun. What he should have also mentioned was that he was a secret service agent.)

Anyways, while I thought I had escaped the train woes, an Amtrack train decides to derail just outside of Union Station, cutting off not only my route home but two other routes as well delaying over 30,000 commuters.

I ended up walking to the other train station and taking a different west line out and having J come pick me up. It took about an hour and a half, but it seemed like a better option than fighting the crowds at Union. And believe me, when trains are delayed at Union Station, it is a mob scene.

Did I mention that it's about four degrees outside? The windchill tonight will be around -30.

Um, awesome.

Don't eat Santa's cookies.

I started wearing the red and gold scarf that is in my profile pic again. It's only been three wearings, and I've already been asked if it's a "Harry Potter Scarf." (Denver University has the same colors as Hogwarts, it turns out.)

We spent a nice Thanksgiving w/ J's parents. It was a nice escape from work and bitter cold. I haven't had much time to do anything since the release of our new product, so not checking email for three days was glorious.

We had spend Thanksgiving last year with J's grandparents, but the drive across PA has gotten too difficult for them to do. Instead, J's parents went to see them before Thanksgiving. Apparently, his grandmother inquired whether we were planning on tying the knot anytime soon. His mom shrugged and assured her that we would, of course, would let them know.

"Well," his grandmother said, slightly put out, "I only hope they decide to before we go."

To which his grandfather perked up and asked, "Where are we going, Marge?"

Okay, okay.

We're introducing two new tests into our early reading test battery at work. The first is the Gray Oral Reading Test which is a well known test that has small passages that get longer and more complex. They are used to determine a child's reading level.

The other test is, I kid you not, the Woodcock Johnson Test.

This initially came up when I was reading a document where my co-worker hyphenated the test.

The Wood-cock Johnson.

We started joking that we should actually add another hyphen to be the wood-cock-johnson-wang-sausage-in-a-box test

Now, the real name of the test is the Woodcock Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery, which I think is also hilarious.

But in all seriousness, the test is named after Mr. Woodcock.

Mr. Richard Woodcock.

Seriously. And he ended up writing a test used by children.

The scene: Late August. J and I are visiting a house we saw advertised for rent on craigslist. The current tenant, a guy our age who works in consulting, shows us around.

"Yeah, it's a great house; I'm sad that my company is transferring me. See, here you've got lots of space, these great built ins, and even this little sun room which I enjoy. It's an old house, but as you can see, there's lots of nice woodwork and these heavy sliding doors."
"Is there laundry in the house or nearby?"
"Yes, it's down in the basement, which is great, but it's super creepy. I had seen a ghost downstairs once, and it totally creeped my sister out when she visited."
"A ghost?"
Current tenant ignores the question

I promptly forgot about this conversation once we agreed to move out of our cookie-cutter apartment complex and into the historic district of downtown Naperville, the #1 place to raise kids in America. While boxes are finally becoming unpacked and pictures are finding new homes, we wore all the clothes in our suitcases and found it time to do laundry. So, I went downstairs to the basement.

Creepy Click for bigger picture

The basement. Kinda creepy.

Now, remember that I said this was the historic district. Naperville is very proud (as a rule, about every-friggin' thing) of its history. (There is even a "Naperville Settlement" right by the mainstreet where I'm sure children are forced to visit year after year.) This is all fine, but remember, I have to do some laundry. I never thought much about how old this house might be until I went downstairs, loaded up the washer (directly from the 80s; my parents had the same model!) when I closed the top and saw this behind the machine

Really Creepy Click to see what's written

The..refrigerator?

Now, this is obviously a hole in the wall. There is a latch. I called J down to look at it, and we both promptly decided that because it was 10:30 at night, we would quickly go back upstairs and not think about it.

So this is now a little choose your own adventure. Should I

- Open the wall and see what's inside
- Don't open the door; you'll release the spores!
- See what other creepy things are around the basement
- As the landlord about the hole in the wall
- Something else

I am working late, editing one of our instructional documents, and I came across this in our math facts instructions.


"These include all facts the student can answer correctly in less than 1.25 seconds and represent all farts the student will be working to develop."

snerk.

We've moved to a new place!

After being fed up with completely-devoid-of-compassion-neighbors (especially at 3 and 4 am), middle-of-nowhere suburban apartments, and price gouging real estate companies (they raised our rent 23% in 15 months), we decided it was time to move.

Now, we're in a lovely split level in the historic district of Naperville (yes, Naperville is old enough to have a historic district) in an old house with lots of weighty sliding doors and lots of charming and often puzzling built in cabinets. (Some seemed to be cut to keep very very small things.)

We bribed some friends of ours with promises of Joy-Yee Noodle (which is a story in itself), packed up all our things in various sized boxes (we were down to bike helmet boxes for measuring cups and spoons) and drove about five miles where we moved it all again.

It will be nice when we unpack more, but the new place has a unique layout; it has a dining room, kitchen and living room in addition to two small bedrooms. Aaaand, an awkward little green room that must have once been a deck is now enclosed in our flat as well, so we're calling it a sunroom since it has four giant windows.

All in all, I think it will be a nice place. Just have to figure out what time to get to train station tomorrow for work. And find the alarm clock. =)

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Halloween 2006
Originally uploaded by xclamationpt

These two crazy kids are getting married tomorrow, and we're heading up to Salem to see them tie the knot. Looking forward to seeing many of you, LJ friends!



Josh draws a body part and temporary tattoo (from their engagement party, 2006) (NSFW...)

Quick thoughts from the road...

1. There is a difference between good gelato and GREAT gelato. We have sworn now to only find the GREAT gelato.

2. "Frenzi" means brakes as in on your car. "Frenzi non fioncionnent" is something along the lines of "red light on the dashboard means your brakes have gone out and you need a tow truck to come and tow you off the mountain."

3. It turned out the brakes were just overheated, so we are ok right now.

4. Tuscany is much more brown than I thought it would be, but it is still very beautiful.

5. Found the restaurant the prez of my company recommended. Going to try to go tonight--very popular though.

6. Italy is awesome.

J and I both took the train into Chicago. We caught the 8:16 am. His flight wasn't until 1:00pm, so he would have the time to take the EL (Chicago's T) there. I would leave straight from work around 4 since my flight was at 7:30pm. We were to meet in Geneva, his flight arriving about four hours before mine.

Chicago to Frankfurt on the oldest plane I think I've ever been on. Seriously, this plane was so old that they did not have air vent controls above your seat. Only light buttons. No lighted path to guide you to the emergency exits. Three very old TVs that you had to squint at for the entire coach cabin. Cramped seats, tray tables that didn't go out all the way. Crazy seatmate who wanted to tell me about everything he did and thought. 8 awful hours.

Remind me never to fly AA international again.

Also, since the German airlines are striking, the catering service is striking too. As a result, our plane had to carry enough food for two trips--the way there and the way back. So, we were told that we would have a "less than expected" dinner and breakfast. Awesome. Breakfast's sliced apples tasted like they were dunked in formaldehyde. Gross.

While there was a slight delay, I got to Frankfurt ok. Amazingly, they let me go through two security checkpoints without a boarding pass. It was enough for me to say, "I'm going to Geneva." They said, "No problem." It turned out that I could get it at the gate, but I was certainly baffled by the experience. I could have seriously said I was going to any city, but I guess they know that it's ultimately the ticket that gets you on the plane. (Or Bus to the plane, in my experience.)

Then, while waiting for my flight to Geneva, they came on the intercom and said, "We're sorry for the delay, we will be boarding in ten minutes because there has been a small problem with a part of your plane."

Um. Again, Awesome.

While delayed another 50 minutes, I finally arrived in Geneva and was greeted by Orin, our long lost roommate from Seattle. But, no J.

"Where's J?" I asked.

"Sat 2 hours on the runway and missed his connection. He'll be arriving in an hour or two."

We drove around a little to kill time, picked up a very tired but unexpectedly chipper J, and now we're at Orin's apartment.

Exhausted.
Making French Garlic Soup for dinner.
We drive to Italy tomorrow.

It's 12:08am CT

"...Hadronic shower development is dominated strong interactions with the nuclei in the detector material."

J's working on an overview proposal for his dissertation research, occasionally reading me choice paragraphs.

"Phonetic Learning Objectives should be broken down into more specific elemental objectives."

I am reading a requirements document for work.

"And here I rest; disappointment and regret collide; Lying awake at night (up all night)"

Blasting Death Cab, but only music from before they became mainstream (Transatlanticism)


How strange that the collision of my work and home life results in fragments, tiny mirrors that reflect each other as they fall.

If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it, and I'll blog about it a bit later.

But, in case you haven't heard, WALL-E features a collection of previews which includes the following:



Seriously?! Seriously.

themonkeynaut reminds me that this was followed by "BOLT: The Wonderdog," and preceded by "Madagascar: Return 2 Africa"

WALL-E was so good too... Why is PIXAR the only one making INTELLIGENT American animated flix these days?

Do not watch this while eating (unlike me) because then you will snarf your cornbread.

Cats on a Treadmill

I'd embed, but it looks like the video cannot be.

I've been crazy busy at work lately, so apologies for the lack of updates. But, we are all well in Chicago--no floods to speak of, and no tornados. Good call.

J made me delicious crepes for my birthday breakfast. He poached bananas and when they were nice and cooked, took them out, put in a stick of cinnamon and then and reduced the rest of the water/juice to a syrup. With Nutella, there is nothing better. Delicious!

I think birthdays are just an excuse to eat anything and everything. Whoohoo!

The Chicago Complaints Choir official video is up! There are bits and pieces of me, and one longer shot of J as we sing in various places around Chicago.



To all of you in NEW YORK I highly recommend participating! Send in a complaint at the least if you can't attend the workshop, but it is LOADS of fun!!!

http://www.complaintschoir.org/

We found a new Asian grocery store in the area called H-Mart. I can't believe we missed it before, but to our credit, the name doesn't really ring "Asian grocery store" the way that other places we like to go does (such as ASIA).

My co-worker had raved about H-Mart, and lo and behold, there was one in Naperville. So we went and it was a pretty awesome market with a lot of Korean foods. They were having some sort of contest today with a Karaoke machine, where if you got a score of 90, you won a free bottle of wine. I'd never seen a karaoke thing at a grocery store before, but they were going all out with flashing lights and a big screen TV.

But having practiced with greenapple2004 over the years, I figured that I wouldn't embarrass myself too badly. J refused to sing, but he helped pick a song and I sang, ignoring the curious looks I got from the other customers in the produce department. (They were blasting the music). But to my surprise, I got a perfect score, so I was rewarded with a bottle of wine AND a 20lb bag of sushi rice for free. Yataa!!

So ended my first Grocery Store Karaoke experience.

Saturday was the end of the month during a promotion month, so I had to go to work for center support and whatnot. The Operations people also had a Wii with Guitar Hero set up in the conference room. It turns out the president of my company is Very Good at Guitar Hero, so when he challenged me, I was very grateful to have devoted many graduate school hours (in Boston with several of you!) playing Guitar Hero. I, of course, "let" him win, but it was a pretty decent battle.

Last weekend I attended Janette's wedding in Lenox, MA and saw a ton of my friends from Williams. It was a fantastic time and truly special in so many ways. I put some picture on my flickr and facebook.

Onward and upwards to June. Can anyone else believe the year is almost half over?