Surprise ... Telegram*

This is the Crown Fountain. It is at Millennium Park in Chicago. The faces will change throughout the day and water will shoot out the "mouth" of the display. Kids run and splash in the pool. It is somewhat creepy, but cool in a way too. The technology is quite good and it does make for an interesting piece to view.



I'm on vacation from work again. This is my last week off until next year. It is time to winterize the house a bit - mulch the leaves, get the tomato plants out of the ground, etc. I am going out to dinner with family & friends many of the nights this week. DM was over last weekend for scrapbooking and she'll be over again this upcoming weekend. On Saturday I am going to have a party.

There is not too much else taking place around here. Char & I played pool earlier tonight and I had the unfortunate pleasure of a drunk man trying to grind on me while listening to Vanilla Ice. I do have to admit it was rather funny.

The weekend newspaper had a story about a bar crawl with a zombie theme. The crawlers would walk like zombies. This makes the walking much slower. They have a cheer:

WHAT DO WE WANT?

Brains!

WHEN DO WE WANT THEM?

Brains!

That made DM & I giggle for about twenty minutes.

*The title is a bit of an inside joke within my family. Years ago, we saw this TV show called, "Mad Movies." They would take old movies and dub in new dialogue. One of the episodes featured, "The Night of the Living Dead." The show turned it into a surprise party with all the zombies saying, "Surprise," in perfect dead pan. One zombie frequenting the porch is set up to be a delivery man who keeps saying, "Telegram." I wish I could find the clip for you all.

A New Reason to Smile

A couple of months ago, I had a problem arise that I didn't really want to discuss with anyone. The problem impacted my smile quite literally. As I bit into a treat at work, I had the unfortunate incident of having a temporary crown break off.

I was not pleased and I was not feeling confident about myself. It was not a nice experience.

Luckily, I was able to get into the dentist quickly. He was able to put the temporary crown back on and schedule up some appointments.

Well, after a few painful experiences (oh, did I mention that I metabolize Novocaine extremely quickly? As in less than 20 minutes quickly?), I left the dentist today with a new bridge on my front teeth.

I'm actually very happy with the results and find myself smiling even when there isn't much going on today.

That is my news for today. I'll leave you with a picture now. I'm trying to post every day, but give me a little bit of time. I might not get the weekends every day, but I'll keep trying.

Fire up the grill

(Larger image can be seen here: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3165/2905840959_ab3ea02afe_o.jpg)

Happy Friday! Want to know what I've recently learned? I've learned that I don't know how to make hamburger patties that won't fall apart on the grill. Is there a special trick to this? Anything I could do that would prevent the entire chunk of hamburger from falling apart through the cracks? Yeah, that was a mess to clean up. And then I ate rice.

Know what? I enjoy grilling. I really like making potatoes on the grill, but have a new way to make bratwurst (thanks to my cousin Brad) that is A W E S O M E! I'll never go back to the old way.

The top picture is a panoramic of Chicago taken from a boat cruise. What do you think? The bottom picture is from the subway/El in Chicago (notice a theme yet?). I just enjoyed the lighting in the shot - even though it is pretty dark. What do you think?

Hi - not much to say

Not too much happening here today. My To Do list includes taking out the garbage (to the street) and that's about it.

Tonight's picture is of the John Hancock Center in Chicago. This was taken from Navy Pier. If you like the picture, give it a click! Thanks.