Sticky Rice?

LAST WEEKEND:
Carrie and I traveled to Madison, WI last weekend for a vacation that I wish we could do every year. This was the first time we'd gone since 3 years ago when we drove my brand new truck up. It's 3 hours on the nose and I love the drive up there. We went with the purpose of getting some Christmas shopping done, going to Whad'Ya Know at the Monona Terrace and just enjoying the city.

Friday night when we arrived, we checked into the Lowell Center where we stay - kind of the Madison version of the Iowa House. It's not too fancy, but for $80 a night it's pretty good. And the location is awesome. You can walk right out onto the State St. mall. We ate at the Great Dane Brew Pub which is a favorite of ours (and many others.) It's what a Brew Pub should be - excellent beer and excellent food. Carrie had some sort of vegetarian thingy and I had a delicious BBQ meatloaf covered in Onion Rings... mmmmmmm.

On Saturday morning we headed to the Marigold Kitchen - another favorite that Carrie discovered. It's very cozy and has delicious food and friendly people. Bottomless cups of coffee and their apple smoked bacon are yum! After a leisurely breakfast we headed to the Terrace for the radio show. We milled around a bit and called Sue to get her Christmas list (again - I forgot it.) We were second in line for the show and sat right in front. About 1/2 way through, Carrie got picked to read the 4 disclaimers and I was selected for the quiz. I WON! Big surprise - never heard anyone lose. You can hear the show here. Listen to PART 2 at about 15 minutes in. (December 2, 2006 show.) You can listen to the whole show too. I have it on CD if anyone wants a hard copy. Like an idiot, I didn't bring the camera and Carrie could have gotten a sweet shot of me right on stage - oh well. I have the CD anyway, and a signed copy of his book that Michael wrote "YO ROB, INSPECT THIS!" in. It was a great time.

After the show we did an afternoon of shopping on State Street and a little area to the South of Camp Randall stadium as well. All of it was very cool but perhaps the coolest store was a little kids clothing store called Wild Child. It was absolutely awesome. Great hand decorated clothes, cool German toys, neato baby carriers, and all thoughtfully done - organic fabrics, etc...

Sunday morning we headed home but not before stopping for breakfast at Mickie's Dairy Bar which is S of the stadium. Sorry Hamburg Inn but this place is even better. I had the most delicious blueberry pancake ever. Carrie had a sort of strange chocolate chip one. And the eggs and sausage were delicious.

The drive home was beautiful and sunny. A fun time if anyone ever wants to join us for the next go around.

GLAZED OVER

First off, i'd like to say that both Carrie and I are sad that we don't (and mostly SHE doesn't) blog as much anymore. We going to try to do better to keep people informed.

This past week... exactly a week ago, in fact, my Dad and I began working on the windows at our house. I had become annoyed with the prices I was getting for quotes from window companies and decided to order them from Lowe's myself. I was able to get 10 Pella vinyl windows for about 40% of the price. And they are all Low-E, double hung, double lock, etc... So I was pretty happy.

2 weeks ago they came in (the Lowe's robot called me) and Dad and I got started. I had ordered obscured-vis for the bathroom so I decided that we'd do that one first. The window came out pretty easily - pretty much what we expected and very similar to the old basement windows that I installed. We just cut through the old aluminum frames and ripped the whole thing out.

After we did that, we were able to clean up the wood, old glazing and aluminum with lots of scraping and cutting and then vacuuming the entire thing. What we discovered at this point was that my measurements were going to be slightly off - the existing wooden frames were slightly narrower than I'd anticipated and the dimension was hidden inside the old aluminum frame which was offset. That was kind of a bummer but there was nothing that could have really been done about it. So Dad headed to Contractor's Tool & Supply to purchase a Bosch pocket router which is a tool he'd been wanting anyway (I suspect he had fun playing with it and getting to use a new tool so much.) This was a godsend because it had a rail on it and allowed us (him) to go around the frame and rip a smooth section out on all sides. The first window was a bit of experimentation and work but we got it in by evening and I caulked it up and repaired all of the inside woodwork.

The next day we started bright and early and ripped through the windows all day, after a brief morning trip to Lowe's to get a bunch of caulk, and a few other supplies. By the loss of daylight Wednesday evening we all but the picture window installed which was really nice. Things went much smoother with our new method. Carrie took some shots of Dad and I working together.

I spent the following day getting lots of batt insulation stuffed into all of the sides followed by a nice tube backer rod for the caulk. The windows sat like that for a few days through the holiday and then Ron and Dad came in Sunday morning to help with the large picture window. After and hour or so we got that bad-boy out of there with only one small corner break. It was seriously glazed into the old frame. We then did the usual routing and cleaning and got it all screwed in. The rest of the day I spent doing lots of caulking inside and out and by nighttime I had everything sealed up. All that remains now is to get the inside touch up painting done and then I will probably repaint the white aluminum outside in the Spring (unless we get another warm spell.)

Things look so much better on the house and I know Carrie and I will love not having to do storm windows anymore, not having to put up plastic and (hopefully) not having condensation and frost all over our windows. I'm sure it will cut down on energy costs too and they look a million times better. Also, the double hung allows us to wash the windows from inside so i'm sure they'll be much cleaner a lot more often.

Lastly, I want to say how much fun it was working with my Dad. The time I got to spend with him I wouldn't trade for anything. Even though it was a couple days of hard work it didn't seem like it at all. It was mostly just fun. It's something that I wish I could do every day. Thanks Dad.

GAMEDAY WEEKEND

I know you will all be shocked to see that I am actually doing one of our blog postings. Hopefully I will get off my dead ass and start doing more of them in the future. Carrie and I are both busy with work so we don't get to do this as much as we'd like...

Last weekend was a huge weekend in Iowa City. ESPN GameDay was here for the Iowa football game against Ohio State who is #1 in the nation. At the time, Iowa was ranked #13. The game didn't go as well as we liked, but it was a one-in-a-lifetime event nonetheless. The entire city was absolutely nuts for 2 days, everyone was talking about the game.

On Friday afternoon, my friend Brian and I went down to the early GameDay presentation at Hubbard Park on the U of I campus near the student union. GameDay had set everything up down there and it was packed all afternoon. Then on Saturday morning, the official show took off and Carrie joined me down there along with John Downing for the festivities. The atmosphere was awesome, but the best part had to be the signs. Carrie and I are posing here next to one of our favorites. Not pictured was probably my top votegetter - "Troy Smith likes Unicorns" (with a nice rainbow.)

At the game the atmosphere was absolutely insane. The stadium was full to the brim about 45 minutes before kickoff which is about 45 minutes before it's usually full. The crowd was loud all game and often hurt my ears which is unusual as well. I have a picture here from our seats where Will and I were sitting:

Unfortunately we lost the game. But yesterday for homecoming we beat a hot Purdue team 47-17 and got ourselves back on track. The Hawks are looking good and it's been a fun year so far. We went to the parade on Friday night which Henry really seemed to enjoy. He spent a lot of time looking for Herky... which he's quite good at saying by the way. More to come...

september weddings

two weeks ago we went to the wedding of my dear friend erin and her sweetie, chad, at st. clement's church in chicago. the priest who married erin's parents performed the ceremony and i had the privilege of doing the first reading. erin looked so elegant in her lovely wedding gown...
the reception was held at fulton's on the river which, as you might guess, is right on the chicago river and affords great skyline view. we sat at a great table full of chicago friends and had a lot of laughs.
one advantage of sitting at a table close to the kitchen was being able to snag the big platter of rice krispie treats before they got to the dessert buffet!

speaking of marriages, this weekend, rob and i celebrated our first wedding anniversary. newlywed erin left a phone message wishing us a happy anniversary and she said that it was hard to believe that a year had gone by already. our first year together as husband and wife has passed so quickly, as good times tend to do, and it's certainly been full of great memories. here's to many more happy years together...

ch + rd
xoxoxo

cooler drumming or, oh the irony

so, just when i finish whinging about blogger and not being able to post photos, i decide to, once again, try to upload some images just to prove to my point, and...
...lo and behold, it worked!
whatever.
isn't it funny how it's irksome to be proven wrong, even when in the process you've gotten what you wanted in the first place?
anyway, i more or less gave up on trying to finish documenting the canoe trip (will stalwartly soldiers on with this task and betsy sensibly created one lovely, comprehensive post), but i didn't want to leave out these pics of henry doing some solid drumming on the chest cooler. this was our last night up north and we stayed on will and sandy's kemo lake property. we had set up our little tent village on the platform where the abandoned canoes, left by the previous owners, are usually stored. i was standing on the other side of the cooler, out of the frame, and henry and i took turns creating some crazy rhythms. there was much wide-eyed excitement, lots of laughter and a bit of screaming.


good times.
it was a great trip. i thoroughly enjoyed our time in northern minnesota, especially my first excursion in the boundary waters and i'm happy i was able to share these experiences with people i love (and like, too!).

blog rot

sorry things have been so stale in these parts lately. the kinda sad thing is that i don't know if they'll change much anytime soon, for a few reasons:

1. it's hard to blog with a full-time job. i'm still getting used to my new work schedule and often find myself dozing, totally zoning out or doing random domestic tasks during the evening hours that used to be prime blogging time. i'm only two weeks into fall term, but things have been going pretty well so far. i have one section with only two students (!) and i had a minor technology melt-down in the classroom on friday ($#*@%*$ DVD projector!), but it's great to be back on a small, liberal arts campus, my colleagues are really friendly and welcoming, and i've even worked out a carpool with some fellow IC residents a few days a week. i intend to take some photos of my office and campus sites, but i've yet to remember to bring the camera to school with me. that said, even if i did have photos...

2. blogger is totally messed up. it seems that everyone else (betsy, will, amber and bill, at least) is still having an okay time of it, but my attempts to upload photos earlier today were completely unsuccessful. actually, i have no idea if this post will actually make it online. we haven't been able to leave comments on other blogs using our log-in for some time now (maybe since the switch to blogger beta?) and things that used to be simple are now head-scratchingly confusing. when even rob has to throw up his hands in frustration with a computer problem, i know that something's up. if we figure it out, i'm sure you'll see some photos and life re-capping here soon. until then, blog on (those of you who still can!)!

xo,
c

boundary waters canoe trip, part 3

tuesday, august 15th...we set out for little saganaga lake (little sag, for short) from maqua and paddled around to look at various potential campsites, to check out some of burn area left by this summer's forest fire (see will's blog for more about that), and to find the site where the decker boys had stayed with their dad on some of their first BWCA expeditions. that campsite has been closed since the fire, but we decided to make a quick stop there for lunch, keeping close to the canoes just in case any forest service folks stopped by. our stay on little sag was marked by a lot of fly-overs by small aircraft (otherwise forbidden in the boundary waters) that were ostensibly doing surveillance of the fire remains, and also a wonderfully cloudless sky with a ton of stars (some shooting). here's the view. it wasn't the prettiest site, but the look out over the lake was lovely...
hiding out from the sun's hot rays under the tarp.

wednesday, august 16th...from little sag, we set out for mesaba lake where we spent our last night out on the water. after setting up, i found this butterfly flitting around. thinking i had a limited window of opportunity to snap its photo, i grabbed the camera and stealthily snuck over to it. i was so pleased when it landed on sandy's shoe--she's taken an interest in identifying butterflies and will bought her a field guide for their anniversary. we later discovered, with the book's help, that this is a mourning cloak. i kept snapping photos and it was more or less staying put. it hung around our site for a good long while and when sandy came over, she was able to coax it off of her shoe and onto her finger, where we got an even better look. she suspected that it might be dying and, therefore less wary of us and eager to fly away. it was a beautiful creature and i felt lucky that it was letting us check it out so intently, up close.
lucy found a good hiding spot under one of the makeshift benches around the fire grate.
making dinner as the sun set over mesaba.

thursday, august 17th...the day started out rainy. we ate breakfast under the tarp and donned our rain gear, but shortly after we started paddling, the rain stopped and the clouds parted. by the time we paddled across alton lake, a nice headwind had whipped up, which made the waters choppy and the paddle a bit more taxing. on our final portage from alton to sawbill we stopped for a snack--the remaining skittles, peanut m&ms, fruit leather and granola bars. from there, it was a quick trip to the outfitters, where we met up with betsy, pete and henry.

on thursday night, we all stayed in a suite at thomsonite beach resort, right on lake superior. we enjoyed nice and much needed warm showers, and relaxed with some cold beer that afternoon.

we went to dinner at the naniboujou restaurant (see betsy's blog for some pics of the impressive dining room) and i was happy to see henry wear the madras pants i couldn't help picking up for him at the gap outlet. if a 21-month old wants to play golf or pretend he's actually 65, he needs the appropriate clothes, right? i've learned that this is henry's 'someone's taking a picture of me!' face...

(more to come on our stay at kemo lake before returning to the twin cities...)

boundary waters canoe trip, part 2

monday, august 14th...we spent the morning paddling and portaging to maqua (bear) lake and got this great campsite--a good swimming spot, plenty of breeze (okay, it was a little gusty at times and keeping the tarp down to secure the ropes was a little challenging) to keep the bugs away, and a beautiful view. if you squint, you can see will and sandy checking things out...

later in the afternoon, will told us that he had scoped out the trail to this cool rock face around the corner from the campsite. we woke rob up from a dead sleep (will, please post that photo to your blog) to join us on a quick hike to see it before sunset.

tuesday, august 15th...another lovely morning. nice camera work by rob--note the mist and the sun filtering through the tree.


the site's rock was a great place to sit and read (or knit, in my case), dry out our swimsuits and dewy tent rainflies, spy on some frogs, check out the loons taking off and landing on the lake, and plot the day's quick trip to little saganaga lake...
(stay tuned for another installation...)

boundary waters canoe trip

saturday, august 12th...packing up for our bwca trip at will and sandy's house. when we started out, our food pack was heav-y with gorp and skittles and tang and such.

will and lucy do some kind of happy hit-the-road dance...

...before she was relegated to her spot in the way-back for the car trip.

sunday, august 13th...we arrived at sawbill after dark on saturday and camped out on an old logging road. it rained overnight and it was pretty wet and gloomy as we got all of our gear together.

our first night was spent on malburg lake. while paddling around the campsite, we encountered an otter who stuck his neck up and made a funny, defensive puffing noise at us. sadly, it was still raining when he appeared, so no pics. the tarp allowed us to enjoy a dry spaghetti dinner.

monday, august 14th...sunshine! we woke up to a cloudless sky...

...wrung out our wet clothes and let everything dry out a bit before packing up and getting back on the water.
lucy helps out with the breakfast dish washing.
checking out our route to maqua lake on the map...

(to be continued...)

i heart surprises

we have another mystery flower in the backyard! in the same spot there used to be this floppy, unmanageable greenery that came with the house and wouldn't go away. one day it just kind of disappeared and now this lovely bloom has taken its place. can any of you gardening aficionados out there identify it?
a second wonderful surprise this week--sarah sent me this monkey necklace (he's swinging from the chain!) as a congratulations-on-finishing-your-dissertation present (i never knew my neck was so freckle-y).
surprise #3--football season is right around the corner and rob brought home a cornfed herky t-shirt for me. i'll wear it to the chick flick matinees i go to when he and will are at the games. go hawks!

camp woodpecker

i fear that at some point last week, i got hopelessly behind here and could no longer pretend that i would really catch up. so now, here's a fast-forward to this past weekend at camp woodpecker, aka our annual summer sojourn to the fallon family's cabin on lake wisconsin. as always, there was a lot of laughter, great food and drink, lively game playing, frolicking in the lake, trashy magazine reading (which hollywood "it" girls ar partying too hard? just ask me!), lazing on the hammock and porch swings, and a smattering of ghost story telling around the fire (with s'mores, of course).
boomer, julie's golden retriever pup, has gotten so big, though he's not yet in total control of his limbs. we got to see a lot of adorable flopping around. he's a natural swimmer (unlike oscar, who graduated from guppy to minnow with some time in the shallow end of the lake, but is still very wary when there's no ground under his feet) and spent a lot of time in the water.

amy, jeff, julie and kelly hang out on the pier.
some intense, cut-throat yahtzee! rob is hamming it up a bit here (big shock, i know). by this point, he and chris were using the big casino dice and jeff had his glow-in-the-dark D&D dice out. julie and i prefer the traditional, came-in-the-box dice and red plastic tumbler that makes way more noise than necessary.


this summer's camp also happened to coincide with kelly's 30th birthday, and we enjoyed some cake before taking off on sunday. she's a gracious hostess, makes a mean mojito and always makes us feel at home at the cabin.

spelunk-ish

maquoketa caves state park has a network of 16 caves connected by trails and a lot of folks come prepared--with grubby clothes, kneepads and headlamps--to wriggle through the smaller ones with one or two foot ceilings. we were up for a less messy and claustrophobia-inducing experience, so we hauled along the giant mag-lite to get a better look from a distance. of course, you can walk through a few of the caves and one of them (aptly called dancehall) actually used to be a venue for dances with live music. the caves also used to have stalactites and stalagmites...until people stole them! me and rob under the natural bridge.
the natural bridge in all its natural glory.

check out the face on that tree!

here are rob and betsy with their cousins mark and sarah (who used to live near maquoketa) at the state park back in the day. i didn't shrink this one for the upload, so you can click on it for more detail. rob has a good, serious explorer pose going on, but betsy is clearly none too impressed.