stuff and maybe some things...

Movie night was last night. Holly made some wonderful things. Encrusted Chicken with a spicy sauce, some drop biscuits with cheese in them and some noodles. The chicken was tender and the sauce was good, though it may have been a little too spicy for Holly...though Shannon seemed to like it too. The biscuts..well..they were too salty, but I could tell that they would be very good, beyond the salt. We watched Psycho, I was reminded of how good a movie it is. We then watched a documentary on the movie, and I swear, it was as long, or longer then the actual movie. Needless to say, we didn't finish the documentary.

I actually wrote a letter the other day. And dropped it in the mail...I don't know how much good it'll be, but I hope it helps to lift my brother's spirits, though I don't know if he'll make it through.

I was very disgusted with myself the other day. Sitting at home, just kinda waiting and I was hungry. Instead of eating many of the healthy things that are around the house (apples, carrots, bananas, etc), I open up the bag of marshmallows. I'm such a binge eater...I have been since I can remember. From cheese and crackers to banana bread to whatever. I try to control it, but from time to time, I feel like I am watching myself do these things. It's dreadful. Yet, I wouldn't get on drugs for it. I ended up throwing them away...

Speaking of drugs, the Prevacid seems to be going well for the most part. I have had painful gas/bloating from time to time, but over all I'm tolerating it well (only that one time has it woke me up out of a sleep). Carrots go down well. The other two seem to be going well and my blood pressure is in line too. So, it's all settling out. I'm not looking forward to the bill for the esophageal dilation, but it should come sometime...I'm actually kinda surprised it hasn't....

So we're going to go see the Cedar Rapids Symphony tomorrow. I have many fond memories of going to this when I was a child. I think the company my dad worked for donated money or something and they always had tickets (that apparently nobody else wanted), so I went a lot. It'll be also be nice to see the Mattas too.

Tomorrow is a big day for Brandon. He turns the big 30. Shortly he'll be a father. The changes he's made in his life in the past year or so, makes me happy. I used to worry about him quite a bit, but now, it is much better.

Happy Birthday Brandon!

Worried...

So my Dad passed on a collection of notes from my younger brother (the one in basic training)...and I'm worried about him...

Leak Fixed...

So I had Thrasher Service come out, 30 minutes of labor later, a gasket replaced and a few screws and blammo no more leak. Quick.

Why would you even do that...with something so relatively simple to fix?

When I initially called, they said they may have to go through a wall, but they didn't have to. So it's extra good.

Now we're back to the normal problems of this house.

No, there is to much. Let me sum up

Well, Last weekend we went down to the Wells Fargo World Food Festival (associated with the World Food Prize)...not just one night, but two. It much much bigger then the year before and because of the warm weather, quite a few people made it down to it as well. We hit Africa, Ecuador, Russia, China and India. Everything was very good, and it was fun to go down and have such a variety of foods. The only problem, I think, was that I think the vendors weren't expecting so many people, so there were a few food shortages.

Good event, if it grows like it has been, it'll soon be quite huge.

I took this past Friday and coming Monday and Tuesday off and decided to use the time to do some work around the house that I've been slacking off with....however the weather has decided to not cooperate, so I haven't gotten most of the things outside that I planned on doing. I did start repatching the crack between the driveway and the house, but after dropping quite a chunk of change on concrete crack filler, I decided to go a cheaper, but because of the weather, I have not been able to finish. Hopefully I'll be able to get it in there soon enough. Friday night, I headed over to the Boelman's to get a few ladders, and then proceeded to spend a few hours shooting the breeze with Brandon. It reminded me as to how much I miss "outside work" Brandon.

Yesterday, we went up to the Hoffman's to celebrate their daughter's, Savannah, first birthday. It was a fun time, though, chilly, but good. We had fun going shopping for a baby girl (almost bought her Iowa State clothes too), and ended up spending a bit more then we planned on, but that's cool. I'm sure they'll get used, and passed on. We came home and caught up on our DVR recordings (almost).

This morning I got up quite early, and goofed off until Shannon got up. After she ate lunch, we started peeling the paint of the ceiling. We got most of the problematic places, and we'll sand down some areas, to make the transfer over. Then the fun began. I noticed that an area in the living room, was a bit damp, and in a bit of checking, found a china bowl, placed beneath the tub drain to catch leaks...

Yeah, I can't believe this crap either. I plan on calling our regular plumber to get an estimate...or at the very least finding out how much water actually collects in that (now empty) bowl...

Then while going downstairs to get something, I noticed that the floor drain in the basement was a bit backed up, so I quickly stopped the washing machine and then closed the door, just to wait for it to go down a bit. Wanting to use some drain cleaner, I decided to use a bucket to get the water up off the floor, and after making several trips up the stairs to dump excess water in the sink, and then figuring out that the water was staying exactly where it was at...and even form the drain upstairs was coming back form the upstairs. So we ended up dumping the water out into the yard, to get it down to the level where we could use the drain cleaner.

Not that there was any point to using the drain cleaner, since it ended up not working...even after using an entire bottle.

So after waiting quite a while, I called Roto-Rooter's local number...and...well...got nothing. It rang and rang and then hung up on me. I called the national number, ended up in the same place, but this time I left a message...after waiting a bit, I decided to call somewhere else, and in looking found Mr. Rooter and called them. Turned out they have a newly minted franchise over in Waukee. And because they picked up the phone and answered my call, the proceeded to get my business.

He came in the time frame that he stated, he wore little protective coverings on his shoes. He had a uniform, and a well placed badge with his picture and name on it, all stating a level of professionalism that I tend to like. He even had wheel coverings for his electric snake thing. He came with a list of flat prices for things. So if he's there for 5 minutes or 5 hours, doing X costs this much...so no overtime, which is nice. He was also very personable too.

So on further inspection, he decided what to do and went to work. After unsealing the main drain, he quick called me over to show how much build up was inside the pipe, which probably explains why it was clogged.... He went to work, and in about an hour or so, water was flowing freely from our basement sink into the floor drain and out into the sewer system. We paid for it and they left (I thought the price was quite reasonable for a Sunday night). I made sure he knew that his good customer service left a good impression on me.

Over the course of the day, we talked about our options with the house. It got especially bad today, with all the things breaking, we even discussed the possibility of moving into a much smaller/cheaper place, or even an apartment, until we can get rid of some of our larger debts (wedding, school, my car, and whatever would be left from selling the house). Anyways, I think, we, once again, decided to tough it out for another few years (3 probably) before we try to find a place that we both can live with.

Gateway Market Grand Opening (Saturday)

So I headed down to the Gateway Market to wander around and see what they had for displays and what not.

So I started from the parking lot to be greeted by Juan O'Sullivan's and a green chile paste type thing. It was warm, but not too spicy, but good. It'd be good with chips or...thin crackers...toast points...that sort of thing.

In the store wandering around they fine people from Niman Ranch. They were giving out free samples of their bacon...oh and it was wonderfully delicious bacon too. I'm glad I already have a package in the fridge.

La Quercia was there as well, giving out samples of their Prosciutto Americano and Prosciutto Piccante. I bought some of the Prosciutto Americano, though both are very good, but the Americano seemed like it would be the best in what I was planning for dinner tomorrow.

Reichert's Dairy Air (no real website) was there presenting their range of goat cheeses. I tried several and bought some roasted red pepper chevre and...I think chipotle chevre. I'll eventually try them all I guess. The small samples were very good. I'm actually going to use this on some La Mie bread, topped with some of the Prosciutto Americano.

George Formaro, did a food presentation, making some Soft Cheese and Herb Polenta and Chicken Saltimbocca with Porcini Mushrooms. It was interesting to watch him work. Certainly shows that he's spent long hours in the kitchen. The Polenta and Saltimbocca was very good, even the smalls smaple that we got. I made up the mind what I wanted to do for dinner...and picked up a Gateway Market pizza.

Dropping Joseph Off Again

Much to my surprise, shortly before 4:PM, I got a call from Joseph stating that he had free time until 10:PM that night...and that he'd like to go eat dinner at La Mie. Who am I to argue.

According to Joseph, normally they would have 30 or 40 recruits to be processed, but they had much less then that (like 4), so it went very quickly. Thus the extra time. So I went to pick him up at a hotel near the airport, and took him to my house.

I had to get some laundry started, so while we were waiting for Shannon to get home from work, I did laundry, and we watched the first two episodes of Dexter on onDemand. Before we started that I found out that in recording some HD tv, the DVR over recorded (by hours and hours and hours), which then deleted a Celtic Women concert we had recorded on PBS, The Queen, most of the TV that we recorded on Sunday, and episodes of Heroes and Chuck from Monday. Kind of annoying, to say the least. We've got everything but Heroes and King of the Hill setup to rerecord on alternate channels (sci fi, youtube, or rebroadcast).

My dad called to ask me about how dropping of Joseph went...and so I told him it went fine, and ask him if he wanted to talk to him. I think that he may have thought for a short bit that I had actually convinced Joseph not to go...but I explained, shortly, what happened, then passed the phone over to Joseph.

We headed over to La Mie, and they've changed the look of it a bit. White tablecloths, larger vases with smaller budded flowers in them (instead of wheat). Also they had large vases with large bunches of wheat in them. It looks like they finished the new section of their restaurant, and put in a wine bar (which is too bad since I wouldn't be drinking that night). Joe (the owner) was cooking and I believe his brother was there as well.

The meal was a prefixed 3 course meal ($20 a person), with options for first and second, with a finish of a salad with cheese (this night a good goat's cheese...I am not sure what it was). I ordered farrow with spinach and a pork stew. Shannon had carrot soup and clam pasta. Joseph had blood sausage with beans and beef with mushrooms.

Everything was excellent. The carrot soup makes me desire to make soups. And the other things remind me that the fall is here, and it's good to start making hardy and warm soups and stews and I'm looking forward to it.

The hilarious thing, was that we could not stop making fun of the lady sitting across from our table...she was talking the entire time...on the cell phone. She didn't stop to eat, she barely stopped to chew. We actually commented on her conversation, since we could hear it so well (She had recently been to Sioux Falls, had a problem with a fabric merchant, etc). It was a bit silly.

After dinner, when we were headed out, I stopped Joe (the owner) and introduced him to Joseph (my brother) and Shannon. I told him that as his last meal before he headed off to basic (and the implied lousy food), he wanted to eat at his restaurant. Which Joe, rightfully so, took as a compliment. After a little bit of chit chat, we left.

We headed back to the house, and we were there for a short bit, before I took Joseph back to the the hotel and dropped him off again. I think I was more prepared this time...and I didn't have to wait with him either. So by now, he should be getting the final processing done, and shortly be headed to a base in Missouri.

1000th Entry

So it was with much torn emotion that I waited with my brother Joseph, about an hour ago, to be picked up by the Army National Guard to go off to basic training. Where the structure may be good for him, I'm not dreadfully thrilled at the danger involved...but...well...it's his choice, so as long as I don't think think he's doing something extremely stupid, I'll support him.

Sigh... The guy that picked him up was a bit late. As Joseph told me, though, "You may wait for the Army, but the Army never waits for you."

Before that, we had breakfast at the Gateway Market. I had the Gateway Omelet (chicken, smoked bacon, tomato, onion & gorgonzola, served with toast) and Joseph had Eggs Benedict (Toasted ciabatta, Niman Ranch ham, two poached eggs & hollandaise). This was Joseph's first time with Eggs Benedict (??? seriously?), and he enjoyed it. I think that since his trip to La Mie his food curiosity has gone up and he's going more outside of his normal limitations. One thought I had was that I was sitting there, with my potatoes, and side of bacon, and Joseph was there with his fruit cup (not that eggs benedict is low in calories) and I was with in my layers of fat, and Joseph...being all fit and stuff. I guess it shows... Anyways, we wandered around the store, I showed the quality products (La Mie and South Union breads at the same store! woo!), and some of the more silly priced ones (over 100$ for a bottle of vinegar? I guess it's a nice bottle...but sheesh). Afterwards we headed over to Merle Hay Mall.

Last night, my mom and dad came over and had dinner at Chef's Kitchen and dropped Joseph off. They were going to bring Isaac, but apparently he had a fever of 102, so...he stayed home.

Sunday, Shannon and I went to Sleepy Hallow Sports Park to celebrate Jerry's birthday. It was fun...running the go carts with friends was a good time. We saw Ryan to proceed to out drive everyone (in his group) and lap everyone...almost twice...I think only one person he didn't get lapped twice... Mini golf was fun too (though their course is not near as cool as others I've seen). It was a great idea for a birthday party.... We ditched out a bit early to go home a clean for my parents coming over.

Year One

Today is one year, but since it wouldn't work out too well, we celebrated last night...

After a short day at Iowa Health System's Day at the park. Adventureland is...well..adventureland. To highlight, I saw Sam Wallace (out going President), hung out with Kaylene and Proctor for a bit, and won a $25 gift card at Hy-vee.

We came home, hung out a bit, and got ready to go to dinner.

We decided to go to Cafe Di Scala. I had been there once before, for lunch, and Shannon went there once for a vet tech thing.

We talked about lots of things, reviewed the year, talked about the future. Ate some good food. We started out with two appitizers: Bruschetta alla Scala (South Union baguette toasted with basil pesto, red onions & asiago. Topped with marinated roma tomatoes) and Cozze alla crema (blue mussels cooked with pinot grigio and served with a roasted shallot & Pecorino Romano cream sauce). For dinner Shannon had Pollo con Proscuitto e Formaggio (boneless chicken breast stuffed with a blend of Italian cheeses and wrapped in La Quercia prosciutto. Served with seasonal vegetables and tomato fontina risotto). I had Costoletto di Agnello all Rinascimento (New Zealand rack of lamb dusted with ground cloves & coriander. Browned in olive oil and oven roasted. With baby spinach leaves tossed in a basil citrus vinaigrette with raisins and pine nuts). All of our food was very good. I was pretty happy.

Shannon had a Flourless Chocolate Torte over a Caramel and Toasted Almond Brittle. I had a poached pear stuffed with, I think, Mascarpone. Both were very good.

Anyways, afterwards, we stopped by the Gateway Market, to pick up some bread (for French toast), and headed home.

So...I don't know what'll happen in the future, but we'll do it together...

Fake Trip to Alabama

(Written at the Wynfrey Hotel 9/17/2007 at 11:00 PM)

One more thing about the camping trip. Shannon remembered something from her childhood and then found it and we also made bananas with M&Ms stuffed into them, wrapped in foil and put into the fire. However, I don't think we did it exactly right, but they still turned out...good idea...maybe we'll do better next time.

So after a busy morning of trying to get a whole lot of things done before I headed off. I had Keith follow me home and I put my car in the garage to check out a few things. Shannon got home, so I got to say good bye to her again, before she headed off to CR. Keith took me down to the airport and I started to work on things there.

After a while of me working (yes actual work), Proctor showed up and we headed on the plane towards Cincinnati. The flight was short and we were quickly in the airport for a 1.5 to 1.75 hour layover. We at dinner at this place called the Pub. The food was ok. The crisps were good, but I think the highlight of the meal was the Brown Sauce. It tastes like worcestershire sauce (which it has in it), but thicker. No free wifi in Cincinnati...

So we played around with Proctor's new iPhone for a while, I browsed some places, logged into my work email...and now he only can login to my work email...it is weird...but I guess there's probably some way to reset it...anyways. After a bit we got on the plane and headed, uneventfully, to Birmingham.

There is simple enough we headed out, got my luggage and then proceeded to wait for the shuttle. Apparently we just missed the previous shuttle, so we hung out and chatted for a while, before the shuttle showed up. As it arrived, Shannon called at the end of her day to tell me about it. It seems like it is going well.

So this hotel is classically beautiful, and I'm kinda surprised they're putting us up here. Though this being my first experience with The Wynfrey, I'm kinda miffed. No free wifi or internet for that matter. $10 a day...silly...just silly. I don't care if it is some sort of standard, it is way to much money to pay for internet access...especially considering the price of the room. The bathroom is nice, the bed is huge, and it seems like the hotel you'd see old rich white people staying at. Telling of that, there was an older woman that checked in shortly after we did, and she had many bags from Channel....so...that's we're at. I'm not sure what we are doing tomorrow. If there is an itinerary, I never got it...Proctor may have, but he is about a week behind in his email...so we are kind of flying blind with the morning. I'll get ready for an early day, eat my breakfast, and hope to know what in the holy hell we're doing by then.

(Written at the Wynfrey Hotel 9/18/2007 at 5:40 PM)

So I got up early in the morning (before my alarm went off) and got ready for the day. I eventually headed down to their breakfast and had an ok meal...nothing about the meal was outstanding. It was better then a breakfast buffet at, say, a holiday inn, but nothing about the food was really outstanding. The sausage looked better then it actually tasted. Afterwards I camped out in my room until the 8:30 meeting time with the CEO to walk us over to their offices. Around 8, since I discovered that my CPAP mask was breaking, I called and ordered a new one (delivered at home).

So basically how this works, is that there is the hotel, a mall and then an office building...so without even going outside, I was able to get to their office. It has a glass face elevator that you ride up quite a few floors.

Their offices are under construction and we walked through the construction to get to the finished spaces. It looks pretty nice, looks as though they are making a chunk of change.

Anyways, we saw what they are working on for the future release of their product. While I will not describe what they said, since I respect their desire for privacy and their desire to "leap" ahead in the market, I will say, however, that I am a bit torn by it. While I agree with what they are doing and it does seem to be the right way to go, I don't necessarily like what they are using to get there. I know why they are, but it doesn't mean I like it. Proctor was in an out for most of the morning, dealing with the press release on the new IHS CEO and giving comments where necessary. After he was to a good stopping point we headed for lunch.

We headed over to Firebirds Rocky Mountain Grill. The smell of the restaurant was a light wood smoke. It was really a good thing to smell on the way in. Certainly they do it to probably intensify the wood smoked used to cook the food. I ordered a steak sandwich with fries. They served bread before the meal and it was a hard crust and spongy on the inside. Certainly ok, but not something to write home about... I did like the hard crust, though. The sandwich, unadorned by sauces, came on a simple bun with lettuce, tomato and onion. The beef was done to a wonderful medium rare and very tender for the most part. At one point in the middle of the sandwich I did run into a extra chewy portion, which was hard to bite off. The fries were done very well, thick fries that were very crispy on the outside and soft and tender on the inside. Good over all. Proctor got a call and missed a good chunk of the meal...it was just that kind of day...

We headed back to the office and Proctor got a quick review and then we headed into information about the upcoming project that we're buying from them...and...well..since I am not dreadfully involved with it, I tuned my attention back and stopped paying as close of an attention.

We covered most of the bases for the day so we decided to go home early. They setup to get us to leave in the morning, rather then in the afternoon. Probably a good thing for the bossman. We headed back to the hotel (through the mall) and I dropped off my things at the room and then went to check out the mall. (Proctor was planning on working) I wandered around the mall for about an hour and a half (it is pretty big), stopped and looked at some Swarovski crystal (they had a store there) and though about a present for Shannon...but nothing really struck me as a must have...(it was usually a "cute by too expensive on our tight budget"). I eventually got tired and headed up here.

We're planning on going to Shula's (America's Steak House) for dinner.

(Written at the Wynfrey Hotel 9/19/2007 at 2:54 AM)

So dinner was very good. The Shula's cut of beef, according to our waiter, is better then prime and hand selected...but well..I had beef for lunch...so I had lamb chops. We started off the meal with a set of appetizers. Barbequed bacon wrapped shrimp, crab cakes, and beef tips. The crab cakes were...well nothing special. Good but not great. The shrimp....were very nicely done, Crunchy bacon, followed by the shrimp...mmmmm. Now the beef tips....I don't know how they were spiced, but they were fantastic...the beef just melted in my mouth. It was truly something memorable.

Next up for me was a gigantic bowl of French onion soup. The soup was...too salty. It kind of tasted like beef bullion. The soup was covered in cheese and getting through it was just not worth it. Nothing like the wonderful and fantastic soup they had at the French Café in Omaha.

They then delivered our main courses and side dishes. The side dishes were two lobster mac and cheeses, caramelized onions, and mushrooms. The caramelized onions...well...were good, but unless you burn the onions, they'll always be good. I didn't try the mushrooms. The lobster mac and cheese was...a good concept, but poor in execution. The cheese sauce was not as good and creamy as some of the sauces that I've made myself, but the idea of putting lobster in there...well that'll probably be happening in the future at my house.

The lamb...oh the lamb. That was quite good. It was done to a perfect medium rare. It was probably the best lamb I've had. Tender and delicious. They also served it with a mint jelly. This tasted like biting down on a sugar covered mint leaf. It was very good...though I only occasionally dipped the lamb into it...it really didn't need it.

Over the meal I had a glass of scotch (Balinvine 20 year old) and a couple of glasses of wine.

After dinner, we headed to the bar and I had a couple more glasses of scotch (Macellan 12 and Cragmore). We talked a bit more and Shannon called, so I talked to her a while, and then headed back to the conversation. It was interesting.

Anyways, we called it a night, especially since we'll be leaving the hotel at 6:AM. For some reason I can't sleep. I did for a bit...but when it came down to it, my mask is broken and I just wasn't sleeping well...

(Written at the Peets Coffe and Tea at the Cincinatti Airport 9/19/2007 at 9:56 AM)
So I finally got back to sleep, I figured I might be cold so I wrapped myself in blankets and a short while later I was snoring away...at least for a couple of hours until the alarm went off. I must say that this is the first time that I've slept on ironed sheets...it's weird...the bed was fantastic.

The ride out to the airport was slow. Our driver, who looked barely old enough to drive, was driving slower then everyone around us...it was weird...though it was a polite young man.

We got in line, got our tickets and got in line to be searched... Apparently, now, using a CPAP makes me a likely candidate for being a terrorist. I fuckin hate flying. The flight to Cincinnati was fairly uneventful, though there seemed to be a strong cross wind on our landing...so it was a bit rough...anyways...not to shabby... We have a 3 hour lay over here...so...*shrug*

It was kinda funny, we're sitting here in the coffee shop, drinking the first real good cup of coffee, and Proctor's texting with his iPhone and two Blackberry sales reps are standing getting coffee next to us...they ask Proctor how he likes his iPhone...I think they are a bit worried about the future of their businesses, however, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, since the target audience for the iPhone is entirely different. Not directly working with the MS suite of applications kind of rules it out....at least at our job it has (they did look at it).

(Written at work 9/19/2007 at 3:10 PM)

In Cincinnati, we went to Moe's Grill and Bar. We sat by the window and watched a lot of people look up to the heavens at the face of god....or that's what it looked like...cause they were looking at the screens that had the flight information...looking up, many with their mouths open... It was funny.

Now at Moe's, it was well...it's easy to sum the place up. They were good ideas, that were tripped up in execution. So they call their pastrami, smoked meat...which is kinda odd to begin with. So they said they have a smoked meat sandwhich with deli mustard...

No Deli mustard...it's yello mustard.

They have smoked meat on pizza...

Good idea...interesting at least. But the crust was a frozen crust out of a package, so it just distracted from it...Anyways...not that good

We spent 3 hours or so in the airport...Total flight time on both flights on the way back 2 hours and 20 minutes. Ahh layovers...

It's good to be home. I call it a fake trip, because I only left the Hotel/mall/office building twice. Once for lunch and once to return to the airport...

A weekend full of ups and downs

So before we headed off to go camping at Ledges, Shannon got the bad news that her grandmother (paternal) was having some hospital troubles and it looked as though it was just a matter of time before she was gone from this world.

Shannon still wanted to go camping, since this would really be her only vacation during the year...

So we continued on. Shannon had her cell phone and I did as well.

We headed up to get there around 3 or so, getting a call from Chris and Dave, stating that they wouldn't be making the whole trip on their bikes, so they'll be waiting for Holly to come get them. We hiked into our campsite and setup our tent. We started to build a fire with the limited amount of wood we had around us. We made some flames.

The rest of the camping party arrived and we helped them bring their gear in.

So camping frivolaty ensused. For dinner, I preped the ingredients for silver dollars (meat (sausage, ground beef, Parmesan, red pepper flakes, basil and pepper), onions, potatoes (pepper, olive oil), carrots and corn). We wrapped them up in tin foil, put them in the fire, and let them cook. They turned out fantastic. That plus many more beers and scotch, we were feeling pretty happy. Shannon and Holly turned in as the night grew more and more cold.

After a while longer, the men finally went to bed (after taking their sleeping medicine (ask Dave)).

I got to sunggle right into my mummy sleeping bag. it was the first time that I've really gotten to use it, the last time it was out, it was not near cold enough to even think about using it. It was quite warm. I took my arms in and out of the bag all night to control my body temperature. In the near freezing, if not freezing temperature, we were fine.

I got up first in the morning and spent quite a bit of time to my self, watching the dawn and the shadows move.

After a while the rest of the camp started moving. And eventually we had scrambled eggs and potatoes for breakfast. Afterwards we drove a bit to go hiking to find the Lost Lake. It was about a half mile hike, up and down many of the steps that Ledges are know for. Pretty landscapes, lots of scenery and a found like. Unfortunately for me, somewhere in there my shoe decided to attack my big toe, and to my surprise later, my sock became bloody...

Anyways, we headed into Boone, and picked up a few things and headed back to the campsite to make lunch. Chris drove Dave back down most of the way to Des Moines and came back. On his way back I got a joyous text message from Brandon, stating that, much to the odds makers misfortune, the Cyclones had pulled out a victory over the Hawkeyes!

woooooooooooo!

Anyways, we played some games, and some rain came, so we headed into Chris and Holly's supersized UFO tent and protected from the elements, we played some Yahtzee and then the card game Golf. After the rain stopped, we built up the fire again, and I made some brats (boiled in onions and beer, then grilled). We chatted around the memorizing fire until we started to doze off (me first) and then headed to bed.

The next morning, I started a fire (grunt man start fire) and had a nice one going while we ate breakfast. We moved our things back to the cars and packed up. We walked past several disheartened Iowa fans (hee hee) and headed back home.

We got home and setup our camp gear to fully dry out. Shannon called her mom and got tentative details on the funeral arrangments for her grandmother. So our busy, coming week, turns into a very busy one. It makes me sad that I won't be able to support Shannon directly, while this is happening. So she'll be heading up there, and I'll be headed on a business trip.

Ahh well...We're all packed up and ready to go our various paths. Shannon's warned her work...I feel bad for the cats. 2.5 days gone...followed by another period of being gone.