We are the mundane
It was 6 degs yesterday morning when I snapped this shot of our hotel. What was I thinking….. Montreal in Feb?!
But we’ve had a great time. Just cool to hang with the kids in a foreign land. They both tried snails one night, Charlotte actually ate it.
We’re on the train home now. A long ride, but kind of an adventure in itself. really beautiful, especially along Lake Champlain.
I hadn’t checked the blog in a while, and when I did, I noticed there hadn’t been any new postings in quite a while either. So I figured I would contribute a posting with some of the latest things going on in this Fall family.
I’m working in downtown Chicago now. As you may know, United has moved their headquarters from the suburbs (Elk Grove) to the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower). The commute isn’t as bad as I had thought it was going to be. The worst part is that you are always at the mercy of the train schedule. From the moment the alarm goes off in the morning at 5:25 AM, I’ve got one eye on the clock until I get to the train station at around 6:25. The ride on the train is decent enough, as I can read or just relax if I want. And I manage to catch an express that only makes three stops before arriving downtown. The walk from the station to the office is only about four blocks and I’m at my desk by 7:35.
If you’re wondering what the view is like, I can see the building across the street just fine! I’m only on the fifth floor and since I’ve been down there highest floor I’ve been on is the 28th. It’s actually good being on the 5th floor as we avoid some of the hassles with the elevators that people on the upper floors have to deal with.
The commute home is pretty much the same in reverse. I’m out of the office by 4:30 to catch the 4:45 that only makes one stop before I get off at Barrington at 5:28. I’m walking in the door between 5:46 and 5:49.
In other news, Veronica is studying in Germany this semester. She left about three weeks ago and has been really enjoying herself, although I don’t think she’s a big fan of German food. For you facebook users, check out her facebook page for lots of photos. She should be adding a bunch in the next few days as she’s just getting back to Reutlingen where she’s attending school from about ten days of travels to Berlin, Potssam, Dresden, and Hamburg.
Veronica is doing quite well at school. Check this out!
Eric has completed one semester at the University of Dayton with a 3.5 GPA, so he is doing well, too. He’s made a good group of friends and appears to be quite happy there. We were a little surprised that he selected a school six hours away, but he’s very happy with his decision to go there. You can also find him on facebook if you want to know what else is going on with him.
Mary Ann is still teaching math at the local high school. We’re just adjusting to the two of us being the only ones around here. It’s both good and bad. It’s nice and quite, but then again it can be boring and we miss the kids.
That’s about it!
We had our annual Santa bar crawl last night. While I didn’t make an official tally, I’d say we probably topped 100 people on the tour. We had an absolute blast. This was our seventh one and it’s really taken off these last couple of years.
Here’s a bunch of photos from the evening.
The Wall St Journal digital edition did a story about the folks that go to see the Macy’s floats being inflated. Lisman has a couple soundbites, the only bites, and the kids are in the shot.
Ginger Woolridge’s seven game shutout streak came to an end as Norwin HS scored on this play to defeat State High 1-0 to eliminate the Little Lions, as they are called, from the PIAA playoffs.
A fraction of a second after this picture was taken, Ginger collided with the other State High girl (in white) which left the goal wide open for the Norwin girl to score. Game story here.
Ginger was also the centerpiece of a game preview article in the paper on Saturday that talked about the 600+ minute scoreless streak that she had going.
Most of the State High team, including Ginger, will be back next year and they expect to contend for the State title.
We’re getting a dog. He’s a stray, 9 mos old. Mix of Whippet and more…. probably some kinda bull terrier in there. We’ll get him on Sat morn from a nearby shelter.
Now that Central Bucks is split into three school districts, does anyone know where Chalfont kids go?
Tuesday night, the State College high school girls soccer team met Central Bucks South in the state soccer playoffs. State High’s goalie is my buddy Randy Woolridge’s youngest daughter Ginger. The game was played at Central Mountain HS which is about 40 miles from here so I headed over to watch it.
Ginger had a great game including a spectacular save with just minutes to go that preserved a 1-0 win for State High. It was her seventh straight shutout. They will now face a Pittsburgh area school in the state quarterfinals at 1 pm on Saturday. The game is in Hollidaysburg PA about 45 miles from here at 1 pm and I’m going to try to squeeze it in.
I say squeeze it in because the day is a very full one. Penn State hosts #4 Syracuse at 11:30 am Saturday in the opening round of the NCAA Field Hockey Championships. Barring OT, the game will end about 1 PM and I’ll be able to rush to Hollidaysburg for the State High game. That game should end about 3 PM, which will give me just enough time to get home to watch the Penn State at Ohio State football game (I’ll miss the first 15 minutes but that just means I’ll be able to skip all the commercials during the first half as I use TiVo to catch up). Then I’ll rush over to Rec Hall to catch the PSU women’s volleyball team taking on Illinois in a huge match (Illinois defeated Penn State in a match earlier this year – PSU needs the win to reclaim first place in the Big Ten). I absolutely love the opportunity to catch all these sporting events.
Note to Gary and Charlotte: The Big Ten Network will have the PSU/Illinois match on live at 6PM Saturday. Should be a good one.
Check out the video.
Just saw this movie trailer and it reminded me of something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM-0Ywc7wNY
Last year, Penn State opened their basketball season up with a home game against Penn. As usual, I was at the game. My seats are located behind the visitors bench and just across the aisle from the visiting teams section (visitors get about five rows of tickets immediately behind the team bench.
During one of the timeouts, there was a Subway promotion. For the promotion the cheerleaders encourage fans to stand and cheer while they throw wrapped subs into the stands. For some reason I must have been particularly hungry that night because I was up cheering for a sub and I don’t even like Subway. As I’m standing there, one cheerleader breaks away from the bunch and comes running up my aisle. She stops a couple of rows in front of me and actually hands her sub to a guy sitting on the end of the row in the visitor’s section.
When I see this I start half complaining to my buddy in the seat next to me saying “you know, it’s bad enough that sometimes, when they have promotions like these, they wind up throwing the item into the visitor’s section, but it’s downright stupid of them to actually hand something to a visitor; I really would have liked that sub”.
A minute or two later, my buddy nudges me and says “I think I know why that guy got the sub.” “Why?” I ask. “Take a close look” he says, “I think it’s Denzel Washington”.
Sure enough, it was. All of a sudden, I didn’t feel so bad that the cheerleader chose Denzel over me. 🙂
It turns out that Denzel’s son, Malcolm (guess who he was named after), was a reserve on the Penn basketball team. Denzel was actually in the State College area filming the above “Unstoppable” and took time out from the movie to come over and watch the game. FTR, Penn State won and Malcolm didn’t play (he did get some time the rest of the year averaging 4 mpg).
