On the drive to dinner, we encountered a few cows wandering the road. This happened more than once, during the length of our stay. Brandon and Lauren had been warned about “vacas negras” as something to keep an eye out for, while driving at night.
Woke up super early (4:00 AM) so that we could catch a ride to O’Hare, along with Julie and Bob, for a vacation in Costa Rica. We got invited to stay with Liz’s Uncle David and Auth Beth, and to trade in our cold Chicago days for some warmer climes.
Excited to see the Cosmic Crisp apple at our nearby grocery store. Ever since I read a fascinating article about WA 38, I’ve been really curious to try this out. This was pretty tasty. Not sure if it lived up to the hype, but I tried to pay attention to the texture and taste. There was definitely more crispness compared…
Another day of longer commuting – this time, I got dropped off at Dune Park to catch an early train in to Chicago.
Today and tomorrow are a bit weird, in that I’m staying out in Valparaiso, IN but commuting in to Chicago. I rode in with Bob early in the AM (he came in to work on our place while I was at work), but took the South Shore line back out to Valpo at the end of the day.
Bob got involved in the Facetime chat, asking Audrey some questions as she tried out the “lie detector machine” we got her as a gift. Apparently, it dings when you tell the truth but shocks you if you lie.
Liz and I got the idea to get Bob a cake as a Christmas gift. And since we were in Indy, we decided a stop at Heidelberg Hause – the place where my family got nearly every single birthday cake for me and my sister, as we were growing up.
We couldn’t really come up with a good gift idea for my parents this year. With my dad getting some surgery on his eyes recently, his vision has drastically improved. So the idea of doing a VR thing came up – and we decided to turn it into a big, group outing.
I think we really need something like this at my office, at work. If you can’t afford the space for a full on Thunderdome, this might be the next closest thing to use for settling disputes.
Mid-morning today, I was down in the basement with Kirt helping to set up the Super Chexx machine. For all the time I’ve spent playing this game, this was my first time actually touching the puck (pretty cool).
As part of his Xmas gift, Kirt got Jackson a Super Chexx hockey game. I played one of these a decent amount as a kid, growing up in arcades. And it was fun to see one of these guys in person again, after all this time. I was working remote today, but was able to help Kirt move this from…
Google Maps led us to a Jo-Ann’s in a mall area, but the route we took ended up going to a very dark (and seemingly closed) entrance. The whole mall, in fact, looked not just closed – but haunted and closed.
Driving through the parking lot, it felt like we were in the opening 10 minutes of a horror movie.
Worked from home today, and while that’s generally a relaxing thing… I found myself feeling stressed out with the upcoming holidays. Lots of things to get done, and the day was getting the better of me.
Liz had the day off today. And instead of taking a much-needed break, she suited up and spent the day working on the living room. We had some backer board left to rip and put up, along with a lot of drywall pieces arond the window frames.
And she did it all. Table saw, circular saw, multitool, staple gun, the works.
The kicker of all this is, while Yoda and ET exist in the same universe, that very same universe is one where Star Wars exists also as a fictional movie, with its own merchandise (and Halloween masks). Which kind of makes my head spin around, in a fun way.