Memorial Day weekend was pretty good. It’s been chilly and wet and windy so it seemed a good thing that there was no thought of camping this year, but if we had, it would have ended well. Saturday morning was wet, not raining exactly but not not raining either. I had been asked to lead the B group bike ride Saturday morning, which was the only reason I showed up. If not, I would have gone back to bed. As it was, I rode down to the Trail House and waited, but nobody else from the B group showed up, and not many from the A group either. So I just went home. I thought I might as well ride since I was up already, so I did a virtual ride for an hour instead. Today, it was very nice outside. Enough so, that since I was off work and had nothing else planned, in the morning I took off and went to Goshen to bike the Pumpkinvine Trail. Perfect day for it. It took a while to find a trailhead where I could park, but once I found somewhere, I got on the trail and rode all the way to Shipshewana and back. There were a lot of other riders on the trail too. The Amish love recumbent bikes, they do. I also found a nice BBQ and ice cream place in Middlebury that smelled good but wasn’t open when I went by, so Beth and I came back later on for lunch.

Tuesday the softball team pulled off a pretty rare feat – we swept a doubleheader! We won the first game 9-7 and the second one 9-8. The first game was a back-and-forth affair with us taking and relinquishing a lead a couple times, but finally came out on top. I was batting as the game ended. In the bottom of the 6th inning the clock was winding down as we were batting. I came up to bat with 2 outs and maybe 30 seconds on the clock. If I’d gotten out before time expired, we would have played another inning…so there was no way I was going to take a swing if I could avoid it. The first pitch was a strike and I stepped out of the box to take a “practice swing” before coming back up to bat, and the clock ran out, ballgame. 

I had my follow-up with the doctor that scoped me on Thursday. He had basically nothing to report except there was some irritation in my esophagus but nothing major. So I’m going to be on the acid medication for a while and then wean off it, and hopefully the acid reflux will be over with at that point. 

Missy came home for the weekend. It’s a long weekend, and there’s a wedding she wanted to go to (more on that later) so she drove up Friday afternoon. She’s only planning to stay for the weekend though, and head home Tuesday I think. But she’ll be coming back again next weekend too!

I dropped off our old grill with Jacob (Nat’s bf) on Friday, along with Nat. I was going to scrap it since we just got a new grill, but he said our old one was in better shape than theirs so could they have it? I said sure and took it over there in the truck. They’re going to fix it up, I hope. It needs new burners and diffusers at least. Nat was planning to spend the whole long weekend with him but on Saturday, she came home because she had not been feeling well and had an upset stomach. She was only home for a few hours though, and she was feeling fine then, so I took her back (Jacob etc were at the races in New Paris so I dropped her off there). She was successfully gone the rest of the weekend. 

Also Friday: a new Star Wars movie! “The Mandalorian and Grogu” premiered tonight, so I went with a small group of friends from church to go see it. Overall I would say it was good. It would have made a really good half a season of the Mandalorian TV show, and everyone would have said it was great, but you just expect something bigger and better from a movie, and in the end I say I liked it, I enjoyed watching it, and I give it a 6 or 7.

Saturday was our friends’ daughter Lydia’s wedding. She’s getting married just before heading off to Duke University seminary or something like that. She was pretty excited too, she was hopping up and down throughout most of the ceremony. They had a chess cake at the reception too, with a real chess set on it. Before cutting the cake they sat down to play a game. They each made about 2 moves before he conceded. It was a beautiful ceremony, and though they had a communion during it, they did not fall into the same mistake that Beth and I did and have the bride hold the juice. Reception followed in the backyard at the church.

Last week Monday I called in to “Fresh Out of Bed and Head to Head” again, and won pretty easily. I called only because they were giving away South Bend Cubs tickets, and I thought that would be fun. I won again the next day, and the next, and the next, so I’m now a 4-time hall of famer on Pulse FM. However, when I got the tickets in the mail Wednesday, instead of 2 tickets for 1 game there was 1 ticket for 2 different games, next Thursday and Friday. I asked Corey about it after the Thursday contest, and he apologized and said he would send me the other tickets for both games and I could go to either or both. Then on Friday I got in the mail, 1 more ticket for a 3rd game. I sent a message to Pulse and they told me I could trade them all back in and they would give me another ticket for whichever game I wanted. So, Beth and I are planning to go to the Cubs game on Thursday. They’re playing the TinCaps for that series, should be fun.

The weekend kicked off the annual Fat & Skinny Tire Festival, of which I didn’t participate a whole lot, but I do enjoy it being here. Friday was the community group ride from the Village at Winona to downtown Warsaw. I rode out to join the ride. There were hundreds of people in the ride, bigger crowd than I’ve ever seen at it. I think. I just came right home instead of staying for the stunt bike show and got to work on the other half of the weekend activities: the lawn & garden type. I had to get the grass cut in the front and finish getting the flowers that we’d bought last weekend into the ground. Beth helped as she could and so did Nat, but we were eventually driven indoors by the mosquitoes with a few left to plant. Saturday I got up early to do some shopping: first to Menard’s for some grass seed and new hoses, then to Lowe’s to pick out a nice new gas grill (the old grill is turning into a rusted out hunk of junk quickly now), then down to the Village again to get in on the backyard sale at Cloud 9, where I found a nice pair of Saucony running shoes for a real steal. At least I hope they’re nice, I haven’t run in them yet. Did some other shopping at the shops in the Village and saw a used Trek mountain bike for sale at the Trail House that I was very interested in…so later on I bike back down to the Village to get lunch at the 2nd Mile Adventures tent (pulled pork) and watch some of the MTB race. Then back in at the Trail House I asked about the Trek; they sent me out on a test ride and to my disappointment the bike was just a little too small. The seal was maxed out high and my hands were hurting by the time I got back from the test ride. Too bad, it was a nice bike. Sunday we stayed home after church because Beth wasn’t feeling good, so I got to work. Assemble the grill, check. Finish getting the flowers in the ground, check. Break down all the boxes piled in the garage, check. Clean up the work area in the garage, check. Get the lawn tractor out from behind the camper, check. Get the arbor vitae into the ground in the backyard, check. Re-seed some of the backyard lawn patches that haven’t grown much, check. Shower, check…

In other news of the week: on Tuesday I got scoped, top half this time. Only the second time I’ve been put under, but this time I didn’t have to completely clean out the GI tract first which was nice. I was being checked to see what’s what with the acid reflux/heartburn I’ve been having lately (although it hasn’t been too bad for the past few weeks). It’s an odd feeling when you wake up and have no idea how long you’ve been out. After going under I only remember opening my eyes and Beth was sitting there. She said I’d only been out for half an hour but it could have been a week for all I knew. Everything looked normal. 

Also Tuesday: FCC softball’s second game and second loss of the season. We were keeping with the other team all right until I let one of the guys pitch. He’s wanted to try pitching, so I started letting him last year. He’s not good at it yet. He pitched one inning this week and gave up 10 runs, including walking in several of them. Anyway, at least the game ended because the clock ran out instead of being mercied. Even though I had been put under for the scoping earlier in the day, I played. Split time at second with another guy. And batted twice, got one hit. Not a good one though. 

The 2nd Mile group rides are back! Saturday marked the first ride of the year, except an afternoon one last week, because it was still so cold. It was a bit chilly this week, too. The B group was just me, Stuart, and Mike C, but Mike didn’t want to do the whole thing (he’s 81, I think, and he’s slowing down a bit) so he parted ways with us and headed back after 10 miles or so. Stuart and I did the circuit through Sidney and got back with ~33 miles.

Next up for Saturday was the Mother’s Day ritual: flower shopping. We went over to Sherman & Lin’s, or whatever it’s called now, and loaded up the car with flowers and a couple arbor vitae trees. Now the work begins: the front garden area needs to be weeded and turned over, and all the flowers need to be planted. 

No FCC softball game this week due to rain. Not rain on game day, rain before game day. The field was too mushy to play on. 

Missy has graduated! Unbelievable. Her years at Ball State University have flown by. I’m not sure how my 4 years at RHIT took literally forever and her 4 years have gone by in a blink. Anyway, I took half of Friday off and we headed to Muncie (Beth, Alex, and I) in the afternoon because there was an expo of the seniors’ work going on that we wanted to attend. Missy and all her friends and frenemies had their stuff showing on screens in the lobby of the building where the art department is held, and we got to see everything including a showing of their short films in an auditorium. Judy traveled all the way up from Birmingham to join us for the graduation ceremonies as well. After the expo was over, Beth realized that she had forgotten all of her meds, so rather than have her feel terrible for the next few days I dropped everyone off at Missy’s apartment and headed back to Warsaw. Drove home, picked up Beth’s meds which were all assembled together in a pill container on the sink in the bathroom and ready to be packed, and drove back (to Anderson, actually, because we couldn’t find a hotel room in Muncie). The rest of everyone went out to dinner while I was on the road; I got back to the room around 11pm or so. The next morning we met up with Judy and headed to campus. Traffic was as bad as I’ve ever seen it but not too bad. I did find some parking on campus-ish. Natalie and her bf Jacob joined us at the auditorium for the ceremony. The graduation was very nice, if mostly standard, but there was a big surprise for everyone, including the students who also had no idea…but the speaker for the graduation was Hugh Jackman! He’s dating a professor in the arts department, apparently. He gave a nice speech for the graduates, and enough of them went over to shake his hand while they walked across the stage to get their diplomas that the dean “encouraged” them to move it along several times. Afterwards Missy went with us to Anderson because the restaurants in Muncie were all packed. She chose Texas Road House but the line there was huge so we went to Red Lobster instead (cheddar bay biscuits….mmm mmm). Then we had a little party for Missy at Judy’s hotel room, before packing it all up and heading home. Missy came with us. I think she felt too exhausted to drive herself. She’s going to stay at home for a week before heading back. 

FCC softball is back baby! Last Tuesday was the debut of the new team. Mostly like the old team, but a few new faces this year and a few missing. The church is getting to the point where we could just about support having 3 teams: my team fielded 17 on opening night, which meant that nearly everyone had to split time in the field with someone, and also since we got creamed, many only batted once (including me, and my one at-bat resulted in a piddling little grounder and an out). We lost 17-5, but we were never going to beat that team. They had a bunch of big young strapping guys, and we have guys like their dads. But we have fun losing, as always.

I had a consult this week Thursday for a scoping. The acid reflux or whatever it is is still hanging around, although it’s been better lately. But I thought the scope was actually going to be Thursday. So I fasted. Until the appointment at 3:00 pm. When it turned out that that particular day it was just meeting the doctor and him telling me that he’s going to scope me. Which I already knew. So I was really hungry. Anyway, I’ll see the doctor again in a couple weeks for him to actually scope me.

This has been a full weekend. There was a work group from the UK in Warsaw this week, so Friday afternoon we did a team building event and went out for pizza at Rocksteady and bowling afterwards. I hadn’t bowled in years, I don’t think, but I held my own anyway. We all did 3 games, and I bowled something like 125, 109, 132… or something like that…. Just enough to be in the middle of the pack. Imran from the UK actually took first place in the series.

Also Friday evening there was a trivia night (fundraiser for a youth group trip to a conference) at the church, which was really well attended. Beth and I didn’t have a team, so we just joined in another table that was also short. Alex got together with some of his friends and formed a team themselves. They made sure to specify that phone use was prohibited during the event, and it was divided into some 6 rounds of 10 questions each, none fitting into a particular category, except getting progressively trickier. We wound up in a group with 2 other couples, but we were the stars of the show haha… we only missed a few questions over the whole course of the event and ended up in first place so we took the GOAT trophy. Alex’s team came in second place (it had been their only goal to beat me). 

Saturday I got up early and ran 10 miles. That’s the first time I’ve hit double digits this early in the season, I think. I think the bike riding has kept me in better running shape over the winter than I usually get. Anyway, later that evening Beth and I went to a Symphony of the Lakes concert at the Wagon Wheel. I’d been really interested in the their spring concert “Music for Movies” because I assumed at first that it would be John Williams…Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park, that sort of thing…. But it was not. They did a series of classical pieces that have been featured in movies over the years, like Amadeus, The Mission, Charlie Chaplin movies, etc…. stuff that you normally don’t think of as movie music. But it was a good show and we both enjoyed it. SOTL is good, but they’re no New York Philharmonic. Interestingly enough, there was also a movie trivia event in the half-hour before the concert started. Of some 25 questions about movies, We only missed 2 or 3 obscure ones. However, we didn’t win, but I’m not at all convinced that the winning team wasn’t looking up answers on their phones (there was no announcement prohibiting that, but I assumed it would be understood). 

Also this week: I took the Santa Fe in to the shop the get the brakes done. The car has started shaking when braking from high speeds. Seemed like classic warped rotors or something like that, and it was…the front brakes were just about not even there, and the rotors needed to be replaced too. At least it was common stuff so they had it done in half a day. So the car rides much smoother now and we’re set back by around $600, ouch.

It must be almost softball season! The coaches meeting for the upcoming season was this week Tuesday. Looks like it'll be about the same as last year, no major changes that I could tell. 

Beth has been so sick for pretty much the entire week. She started feeling bad the day after we saw the movie last weekend, by Monday she was sick enough that she called in to work. She's been feverish and coughing all week, so not much has happened this week. And this weekend we watched a lot of basketball. That UConn-Duke game...holy cow!

Life group met on Monday, such as it is. One of the couples wanted to host a session at their house, and this was the week for it. Only the 3 couples that have attended anything since last year attended, so as has been the recurring theme, I'm not sure what to do about it. Maybe we should keep trying to add members or maybe we should combine with another life group that's struggling or maybe we should just tell everyone we're disbanding and they should find another life group if they still want to be in one. Well, we'll keep the status quo for now. Anyway as far as this week's session, the 6 of us got together for dinner and a session of the minor prophets book (Hosea). Winter has been lingering this year, and we still have been getting snow at times, and Monday there was still some on the ground here and there. But by the time Beth and I left their house (near Mentone), the snow flurries had started in earnest. By the time we got as far as Mentone, the snow was coming so thick and so hard and the wind was so strong, we were in complete white-out conditions and I literally couldn't see the road. I had to drive by the sound of the rumble strips for a bit, and was moving at a relative crawl. I could tell that there was a drop-off not far past the shoulder, though, so that also kind of freaked me out. It was bad enough that everyone was texting each other to let everyone know they got home safe. Alex even texted us to remind us to drive safely. The snow abated after a while so we got home in a regular snow flurry instead of a blinding one.

It's NCAA tournament time, which means it's time for a bracket challenge. I filled out two with people at work this year. The one I usually do with the ATS lab, I started filling out and realized that my picks weren't very good already and I didn't like them, so I just punted and picked all Big Ten for the final four: MSU (champions), Michigan, Illinois, and Purdue. I think it's a crap bracket, it just kind of happened. There's another bracket challenge at work though, new this year with the research folks, and I filled out one that may be even worse. That final four was Houston (champs), Kansas, Arizona, Michigan. As of now I'm doing all right in both brackets, surprisingly. We watched some really good games this weekend: VCU knocking off UNC was great. Nebraska-Vanderbilt was great. Purdue-Texas was great. I love the tournament!

Thursday my group from work volunteered for Habitat for Humanity again, at a house being built just off the ZB campus. It's a house that's been running behind schedule and having delays from the utilities. It was originally supposed to be a women's build but they're too far behind schedule right now so that's been waived. We spent the afternoon painting doors and bifolds, laying flooring (Trey is the expert in this and nearly finished the whole house) and doing some wiring. I installed the exterior power receptacles and all the smoke detectors and did some painting. We got a lot of work done if I do say so myself. 

Friday was an event I've been looking forward to for a while now. Opening weekend for "Project Hail Mary," which as I've been telling people I was Jurassic-Park-level stoked about seeing. I loved the book and have only heard good things about the movie, and the trailers were all awesome. So we went to see the movie with the Zastrows and Matthew. I was not disappointed at all! Loved it, 10/10. There was more humor in the movie than in the book but generally I thought the movie tracked the book incredibly well and never lagged. And included almost everything from the book. Great movie, fun time.

Saturday the family went on a road trip to Indy to visit the IKEA. Alex was off work, and he's needed a new dresser for a while. Nat stayed home but Beth and I and Alex drove down to Muncie first to pick up Missy, then headed to the store. I'm always surprised and a little disappointed that the IKEA outside Indy is so small compared to the one we go to in Schaumburg. But we did find a good dresser and were able to schlep it home in the car even though it was larger than we thought it would be. Now we just have to assemble it....

Alex's birthday was Thursday. He picked Red Robin for his birthday dinner, so we went to the mall (he also had some birthday money) and did some shopping and got dinner. He got to hang out with some friends this week as well, but generally it was a pretty chill birthday, I think. 

Saturday Beth and I went to Elmhurst IL (Chicagoland) for the funeral for Laura's best friend Monica. Laura's BFF since before high school, Monica passed recently of breast cancer that spread. We went mostly for moral support for Laura, but I wanted to see her brother Mark as well. We drove to Chicago early in the morning, as usual when we leave plenty of time for traffic, there isn't any to speak of and we get there very early. Anyway, the funeral was nice but short. There was a couple hours of visiting (she was cremated) before the service, then a pastor spoke (but didn't want to offend anyone, so it was spiritually very light), Mark spoke, and Laura spoke. The service lasted about 20 minutes or so, then everyone went to a Mexican restaurant adjacent to the funeral home before heading out. We were home by around 8pm. 

Missy's been home for spring break! Unfortunately we're not doing anything fun, but she had enough work to do over break that it wouldn't have been a great time to do that anyway. She arrived Saturday morning and we've been doing mostly nothing. She did get together with one of her roommates who lives in the FW area on Wednesday, her friend Evie came over (she picked her up) and they spent the day hanging out. I was voluntold to drive them back because Missy didn't want to drive her home and back in the dark. So I did. We took her out to a nice sushi dinner on Friday, and up to Coppes Commons in Nappanee on Saturday (Rocket Science, in particular). She headed back to Muncie Sunday afternoon.

Beth went in to the orthopedic center again for an injection in her back on Friday. She's pretty worried about it not working, because her back has been awful lately and her last injection didn't really help as much as it should have. She got put under this time because she passed out the last time, and it went off with no problems. It's still a bit early to tell how well it worked though. She's also worried that it costs so much money and our insurance just reset at the beginning of the year, but I've tried to allay that as much as possible and told her we're going to be fine and we'll get the shot. At this moment she still doesn't feel great but we're hopeful.