Everyone should go out and see "Monsters, Inc." This is Pixar's best movie yet, and I loved them all before this one. And that short feature before the film made me laugh so hard I almost wet myself. Plus, the teaser trailer to Episode II, to boot. What more could you want out of your movie-going experience? No outtakes, though. Anyway, we finally got some encouraging news from the doctors...the no-baby problem may be as simple as low thyroid, which is the easiest of all things to fix. And the doctor wants to do a uterine x-ray, after which she says a lot of women get pregnant right away because it flushes everything out. Our goal is now to be pregnant by the end of the year. And I have a personal goal of a 200 game by the end of the bowling season. I hit 178 last time, before dropping to 135 and 100 in the next two games, but for a while I was in the zone. Even Beth broke 100 in the last game. We bowl again Saturday. And I have applied to refinance the pesky condo in Virginia; I've been on a waiting list with NFCU for 6 weeks, during which time I missed the best rate, but I locked in 7% with no points today and even financing all the closing costs it looks like I'll save about $125 a month. Still nothing on the house in Arkansas.

That was the BEST World Series since 1984! Great pitching, late inning comebacks, game 7 dramatics, and the Yankees losing! What could be better than that? Did I mention the Yankees lost? Woo hoo D-Backs!

We saw "From Hell" Saturday with some friends. Pretty good. Pam & Marve visited today.

Nothing new to report, really, except about a week after the last posting was moving day. We had been living with the previous owners of the house due to some weird and different circumstances for both families. The plan was to move all their stuff out Friday night and Saturday morning & afternoon, then go get our stuff from storage and move it in. The good thing was we had simply tons of people from church to help the moves. I truly wonder, how do people that don't go to church move? It must take them forever. I really thought, even though Ronnie said their stuff would all be out by noon Saturday, that we'd be lucky to have it out by Monday. But, I was pleasantly surprised by how fast it went with so many hands. The house WAS empty by noon Saturday. And our stuff went even faster. A swarm of trucks descended like locusts on the storage place and we had our stuff moved in nothing flat. We put the boxes in the garage so we could clean the carpets and paint before getting it to packed, but we still haven't painted anything yet. Maybe next week. At least we have a few pictures up now. And the only things broken were a couple pieces of glass from the china cabinet and a lamp socket.

Beth and I now own 3 houses. We closed on the latest one Friday. I almost had a heart attack when the realtor told me how much I needed to bring to closing because I thought she wasn't including the down payment in the amount so I was envisioning needing big cash advances. But, I found out we actually had plenty, whew. And we dropped the price on the Arkansas house again, trying to get it to move. Everyone who looks just loves it but think it's too much. I guess Arkies would rather buy a cheaper dump. Not surprising, believe me. I'm hoping we don't have to rent out the house but if worse comes to worse and we have to, so be it. We'll give it a while at the new price and see. I'd think that at the new price AND $2500 closing costs paid by my company to boot, someone ought to go for it.

Homecoming & baptism weekend. My 10-year reunion at Rose-Hulman was this weekend. Beth and I got on the road to Terre Haute as soon as I got out of work so were were in town in plenty of time for the pep rally. I met Bob there, whom I hadn't seen in 10 years, so we sat with him to catch up. he was one of the AXE brothers with me there. The pep rally was...interesting...it's just weird to see sorority girls at Rose (during the cheer competition, one of the sororities did theirs, which made Bob observe "what have they done to our school?") and Rose now also has a dance squad, which performs at the games, presumably...and all the cheerleaders are students at Rose now instead of ISU. Another weird thing, the president of the school appeared to be smashed drunk during a speech we gave, which I thought unlikely. Slurring his speech, seemed disoriented. I wondered if he had had a stroke and I hadn't heard about it. Actually, he was having one at that moment. A mini-stroke, actually, and had to be dragged to the hospital afterwards, but appeared to be fine and recovered in time for the football game the next day. Speaking of football and back to Friday night, a couple of the banners the frats/sors made for the pep rally said things like 'put out the Flames' or 'the Flames aren't rising,' which was strange since we were playing the University of Chicago Maroons, NOT the University of Illinois at Chicago Flames. But speaking of flames, the bonfire was pretty impressive. A big ol stack of railroad ties, looked like a 40-foot wedding cake, soaked in creosole, lit up awfully fast and made us walk backwards for quite a distance. My eyeballs almost dried up. Saturday, we did the campus tour, meeting several old professors (Dr. Hariri told me he still has my old report on filtration I wrote in 1991...I asked him "was it that good?" apparently it was. Go figure.) We met up several guys I hadn't seen since graduation 10 years ago, and spent a lot of money in the bookstore on Rose-Hulman by-products. We skipped the reunion dinner, figuring I really only knew the ChemE's in my class anyway, and we went to Outback for dinner with several of them instead. And we stayed in the Travelodge on 3rd Street, which was a trip down memory lane in and of itself. Overall, homecoming weekend was a really great time. The biggest surprise to me was that the Wabash Ave K-Mart isn't there any more. Sunday, another trip down memory lane...actually a trip down US-41 from Terre Haute to SR-10, SR-10 to I-65, I-65 to I-94, I-94 to US-131, the same route I used to drive home and back when I was at Rose to go see our great-nephew Sam get baptized. Home really late Sunday night. Oh yeah, we had to move out of the apartment by the 16th so the last thing we did before leaving town was move all our stuff to the new house.

Our stuff is now in Warsaw. And as it turns out it wasn't in Fort Wayne all this time, but Cincinnati. Why? Don't know. Anyway, we're settled up with the moving company and all our things are in storage here in town. We close on the house on the 21st this month, but since we have to be out of the apartment on the 16th we're going to be living with the current residents for a while. They're asking people to help move them out and us in at the same time, but I think moving them out is going to be quite an event by itself. We want to shampoo the carpets and paint the walls before too much stuff gets moved in. anyway. We've joined a bowling league lately, got our very own bowling shoes, too. The first league games were a week ago and we did pretty well considering how long it had been since we bowled. My average was about 130 and Beth's about 85. However, we bowled again yesterday (non-league) and did considerably worse. Maybe it was the shoes. Or the ball. Or the lane.

For a change of pace, Beth and I headed south this weekend...to Indianapolis. Spent the weekend with PJ and Roma, who Beth hasn't seen in 3 years. We went to the Indianapolis Zoo, which was pretty nice except for the rain. They've got a jellyfish exhibit there, which was interesting...never saw anything like it before...and the big cats were actually up and moving around. Usually they're asleep when I come by a zoo. And Sunday was the first time I'd ever been to a BW-3, where we all split 100 buffalo wings between us. And Lenny the bird is still very upset by my presence.

Beth and I have had a busy couple of weekends. Saturday we went with some friends to the World Pulse Festival, which is a music festival sponsored by a Christian radio station near here (Pulse-FM). They had a lot of really cool bands there, local to national. The rain was the only problem...the day started bright & sunny, high 70's or low 80's, and was so through the sets of Denver & the Mile High Orchestra, Andy, and Salvador, but about the time Plus One started it was really cloudy and started raining. It rained lightly but steadily through Point of Grace's set, and by the time dc Talk was supposed to go on there was a real danger of being struck by lightning. So, dc Talk was cancelled. But the bands we did see were great, especially the opening ones. We spent Sunday in Michigan for Ryan's 3rd birthday party. Just about everything he got was either Veggie Tales or Bob the Builder. Oh, and news from the baby department...the doctor that we had been referred to and had an appointment with in 2 weeks is not in our HMO so coverage has been denied. The HMO wants us to go to a doctor in Indianapolis, who of course doesn't have an available appointment until late November. We're going to try to appeal, but I'm not hopeful. And I found out today exactly how much it costs to store household goods in Fort Wayne for 6 weeks...a lot...we might have to speed up the buying thing if it's going to cost that much to not have our stuff. We have almost had our house sold three times now, but have had one couple not get approved for lending and two others decide to buy elsewhere. According to the realtor, everyone who looks at the house loves it. But, apparently, doesn't want to buy it.

So much for being better at updating, I guess. About every 2 weeks or so is just about all I can manage. At least nothing much has been going on for a while, so I can probably recall most of that time. I went to Phoenix on a bidness trip last week, which was really productive I thought. The machine we looked at is pricey but very cool, and may be just what we've been looking for. So I may get to spend $110k-130k of company money soon. We'll see. Mom and dad were in town (which reminds me, it's his birthday. I'll have to send an e-card and e-present.) and I got to see them for a while. I highly recommend Gordon Biersch in Tempe for dinner if you go there. No progress on selling either house or condo, no progress on getting a baby. Beth's doctor appointment is in a couple days; we'll see what he says. Good news: the plumbing problem at the house was such a non-issue that there was no damage to the walls and the bill was only $82, most of which was just for the plumber's visit. Something just needed tightening, apparently. We've seen some movies lately: Jurassic Park 3 (ok...more of the same), America's Sweethearts (ok...chick flick), Cats & Dogs (ok...Goldblum phoned in his role), Planet of the Apes (pretty good).

I am so bad at updating this thing lately. I'll try to be better. Anyway, the most notable thing going on in the past few weeks is the trials and tribulations concerning selling our house in Arkansas. Most significantly, the day an interested couple went to look at it for the second time we got a burst pipe which soaked the crawlspace and did an undetermined amount of damage to the flooring, drywall, etc. I've been assured that damage was minimal and it is all being taken care of, but I still don't even know much of anything about it. And I hear the interested couple has bought something else. Anyway, back to the drawing board on that one. No interest on the condo in Virginia yet, either. On the bright side, Beth and I have found a really nice (and reasonably priced) house in Warsaw, but of course there's nothing we can do about it until one of the houses sells. Oh well. We have gone to Michigan a couple times this month, one for July 4th and again last weekend for baby Julia's baptism. Beth also threw me a surprise party at TGI Friday's but I knew about it from deducing something was up from what I heard between her and Stephanie, with them trying to be sneaky. My sister Laura in Oklahoma recently rescued a litter of kittens and the mama cat during a rainstorm from where they were trapped under a deck. She's keeping the mama and 2 kittens, but she assures me she is not turning into a crazy cat lady. On the home front, still no progress in the baby department, so Beth may go to a fertility specialist soon. I hope we don't wind up with 7 babies at once. And finally, I'm going to Arizona on business in a couple weeks because I found out about a new cleaning system my department now wants to get. I should be able to see mom & dad while I'm there, if they're there while I'm there.

It has been a pretty good weekend. Friday night my boss's boss's band was playing at the Elks so Beth and I went to see them. They play 60's & 70's rock. We hung out with some people from work and did some dancing. It was the first time Beth and I had gone dancing since Stephanie's wedding. Saturday Steph, John, and Julia came down from MI to help Beth and me look at manufactured houses (we've been a little discouraged by the housing market here and may have to get a manufactured house or spend a lot more than we wanted) and while they were here John and I test drove a new Jeep Liberty. Nice. Very nice. Much roomier than even a Grand Cherokee. Very smooth handling and ride. And reasonably priced, especially sitting next to a $39,500 Grand Cherokee as it was. Today the church Beth and I have gone to twice here had their sesquicentennial celebration, a catered event that Beth and I were invited to even though it was a ticket event. We were also invited to join two Sunday School classes, a church campout, a potluck next week, the softball team, lunch on Tuesday, etc etc. The church is really friendly; I think we'll like it there. Beth and I had our 9th anniversary about 10 days ago but didn't do much that was noteworthy, just went out to dinner and a movie. And we hit a milestone with the condo sale in Virginia: someone looked at it.

It's been so long since the last update, and so much has gone on, that I'm not even going to do the back dating like last time. Since the last posting Beth and I have gone out on Lake Norfork with a co-worker from Baxter and his family on his boat, rented a pontoon (the very next day!) and gone out on Bull Shoals Lake with Beth and my sister, visited PeeJ and Roma in Indianapolis, moved to Warsaw, started a new job, visited my parents in Chicago over Memorial Day (dad was at a conference), visited Beth's family in Michigan (Beth went to a baby shower for Stephanie), flown back to Arkansas to visit Beth (a week after she had driven up here for a weekend), rented a Mustang, grilled a lot of meat with all our Arkie friends, flown back, finished "Diablo" (about 3 years behind the times...I know), had the movers take away all our stuff, got Beth moved up here, got a new great-nephew (from Ric & Nickie), had Becky moved to a family plot, went garage sale-ing with Ric, Nickie, Ryan, and baby Sam, bought a new computer desk, and got Indiana license plates for the Geo. I'll try to update more often from now on.

The new job news just keeps getting better. Today I found out that after we get the house here on the market, if there's been no interest in a month, the company will (through the agent) find out what needs to be done to sweeten the deal enough to get the house moving, and pay for it. So cool.

We had a Survivor II party at our house tonight with Titus & Lesli and Walt & Amy and all the kids. I thought It'd be fun to serve mushy rice, bugs, and river water but we decided to go with grilled hot dogs instead. It was a lot of fun. My favorite part was when the jury got to question Colby and Tina, and Gerri basically asked them to apologize to her, and they basically slapped her in the teeth. I loved that!

I have decided to accept the new job offer. My start date at the new job will be May 21. the relocation package they offered is really good, as it turns out...they pay for all moving costs, including packing, shipping, and storage of household goods, they pay for all closing costs in selling the house here and when we buy a house there, they will pay for two house hunting trips, they'll pay for trips back here every other weekend if Beth has to stay behind to tend to our affairs for a while, they'll set us up in temporary housing for two months (longer if needed) free, they assist us in finding a new house, and I could go on. (my current job gave me exactly $2000 for all relocation expenses to spend however I wanted, the end.) It was not an easy decision, but in a nutshell it's a job like what I originally wanted, the pay is better, the location is better, and they gave us everything we thought we might need to make it possible.

Zimmer (the company in Indiana) made me an offer today. Now comes the hard part. Deciding what to do. There was a part of me hoping I didn't get the offer so I wouldn't have to deal with the decision but now it's time to do some serious thinking, talking, and praying. Beth and I don't really care for living in Arkansas that much, and Indiana is a lot closer to her family. But we still have the condo in Virginia, and what if we can't sell this place. Even the money at the new job won't pay three mortgages. We've also made some really good friends here, even though it took a while. And I do like my job, and I have a great boss. The guy who would be my boss seemed pretty cool in the interview, but I don't really know how he is to work for. My boss here is great to work for. The job is located in Warsaw, Indiana, which is a lot like Mountain Home, Arkansas, but it is a lot closer to a real city than MH is (Warsaw: 40 mi to Fort Wayne, 50 to South Bend, 120 to Chicago, 120 to Indianapolis. MH: 120 mi to Springfield, 150 to Little Rock.). I think it may all come down to what kind of relocation assistance package they can give us.

I'm back home now, after taking the opportunity to go see Stephanie and her baby while I was nearby. Beth and her mom came to pick me up in Fort Wayne (even though Beth is now also sick as a dog) and we spent the weekend visiting. Julia is a cute little kid. We drove back home together with our friend Mikey from Detroit, who was going to come visit us this weekend anyway. We just caravaned. I always tell myself I'm never going to drive 13 hours the day before having to go back to work again, but I always do.

Now it can be told...I've been keeping a lid on this story for a while. A few months ago I got a call from a headhunter (who knows where he got my name) telling me about a job opening he had with a company in Indiana and asking for my resume. I assume there was no interest at the company, but he called back a few weeks ago telling me about another job with another company and would I like to be considered. Sure, I said. So he gave the company my resume and they wanted to interview me. So I did a phone interview with the guy who will be the boss of the new job, and a few days later I hear from the headhunter they want to bring me up for plant interviews. I flew up to Indiana (see below) and overcame 1) not getting into town until after midnight the night before, and b) them expecting me at 8:00 even though my letter said 9:00, and had a really good set of interviews. I even ran into an old classmate from Rose-Hulman, ChE class of '91. I was told at the end of the day that they expected to give me an offer next week by Friday. So, I'm feeling pretty confident about getting an offer. We'll see how it goes.

I had a most interesting flight out of St. Louis today. The plane I was on had some sort of problem with the cabin pressure regulator so as soon as we took off, everyone's ears started popping big time. One girl got a nosebleed. It was pretty uncomfortable, so we did a big circle and landed in St. Louis again. When the plane landed, the cabin actually fogged up. It looked a lot like smoke, and it was also windy enough that the landing was pretty hard, so it was easy to imagine that it was something really wrong and they were just feeding us a "pressure regulator" line to keep everyone calm. I was about 3 hours late getting to Fort Wayne. Why was I flying to Fort Wayne, you ask? I'll tell you later.

Stephanie had her baby today. Little miss Julia Renaye. Beth's hitting the road early tomorrow to go see them as a surprise. Steph doesn't know she's coming.

As it turns out, it was strep throat. Strep throat sucks. I went home from work kind of ill last Tuesday morning, and by evening it was awful. My throat was literally bloody raw. I went to the doctor Wednesday, and he actually stopped talking in mid-sentence when he looked in my throat and said "oh, geez." But I got some of that super duper antibiotic and Claritin for the congestion. I liked the antibiotic because my throat was more or less normal in a day and a half. Claritin, however, makes me dizzy. Anyway, I missed three days of work, plus Good Friday, but I felt well enough for the sunrise Easter service this morning. It was supposed to be out at Lake Norfork but we had a huge storm last night. Trees down, signs blown out, power going off, lots of lightning...so instead of at the lake it was at the church. Just as well.

Must...update...website...aaaaaaaaggh. Sick today. Mucus everywhere, skin, joints, eyeballs hurt...head stuffed... can't think...need...more...tea....

Lots going on lately, no time to update. Anyway, Beth went home about a week ago for her mom's 75th birthday. We got her on the train a lot less eventfully than last time (see 7-23-2000) because we actually found a motel near the station. But I dodn't feel like paying the money for a room that I was only going to use for a couple hours when she came back so I just slept in the car for a few hours until the train showed up. No bugs in the car this time. While she was gone I ate a lot of pizza. Now she's back. This weekend, we started putting a drainage hose in our lawn to keep the backyard from puddling so much. It's HARD to dig around here. The soil is all clay and there are a LOT of rocks. Today and yesterday we got about a quarter of the hose buried, and we're worn out. Anyway, eventually the downspouts on three corners of the house will all drain into the buried hose and empty into the ditch by the road, instead of soaking into the ground right by our foundation. In other news, Stephanie is due any day now, my NCAA tournament bracket finished at 36-28 (including the play-in game), and the X-Files is back with new episodes!

I finally got things onto Netscape. But I guess you knew that. Anyway, Beth's feeling much better, the baby's room is finished (I'll post a picture when I have one) and the condo in Virginia is up for sale. And Michigan State just made the final four for the third straight year! Woo Hoo!

I know it's been a while since I updated, so I'll try to remember what's gone on for the last month. Most specifically to this website, Homepage.com will no longer host free web space so that's why I'm on Netscape now. I haven't put any new stuff up because I've also been working on converting and updating. Anyway. Beth's still working long hours for tax season and now it's caught up with her...she's sick as a dog. A sick dog. One with bronchitis and TWO ear infections. I'm also coming down with something and wound up taking this afternoon off. In the past couple weeks I've started work on the house again (Beth's extra money helps me get motivated). We've painted the future baby's room a nice pale yellow and light blue and will put up the wallpaper border (ducks and cows) later after the paint's cured long enough. I've also been working outside trying to improve the drainage around the house (we get pools) and reclaiming some overgrown spots between our house and the next. And I got new closet doors for the guest room but haven't had a chance to stain them yet. if they work out well I'll put them in every bedroom. I also put up some new track lighting in the kitchen over the sink. And I dug up a dead cat in our backyard. I was doing some digging and the shovel turned up what appeared to be a sandbag, which I began pulling up. When I got it up, it has nearly shredded (it was old) and there was a little blue collar in it and little bones strewn along the ground. EEEEEEEW. My bracket is trashed, and it's only the second day of the NCAA tournament. Too many upsets. Especially hurtful was Iowa State (one of my final four) losing in the first round.

The furnace is fixed, we bought the Saturn, and there will be no job in Illinois for me. But I did get a call from a headhunter last week...how he got my name I do not know, and he didn't know either when I asked...and he sent my resume to a company in Bloomington IN last week that he thought might be interested in me. It's funny to have a job come looking for you for a change. Anyway, I'm not looking for a new job, but it's nice to know there are options. They'd have to come up with a really sweet deal to lure me away, one that includes a serious relocation package. Speaking of which I just heard yesterday that the tenant living in our condo in Virginia just inherited a house in Virginia Beach and wants to move out. However, she has a lease until November and she's crazy if she thinks I'm just going to let her go. If she found another tenant or (better) a buyer I'd let her break the lease but absolutely not otherwise.

Beth's appointment went really well. The doctor down in LR told us that she was doing great, and we don't need to go see him anymore. Which is good because we got a bill for $9000 from the hospital this week. Seems our insurance has paid exactly $15 so far. Typical. The guy at the hospital accounts receivable desk told me that our HMO is notorious for slow payment so we have to call and yell at them. Anyway, Beth has to stay on the birth control pills for another month and a half, and then the doc says we can start trying again. In the meantime, Beth's working again. the half days this week never happened since they've been so busy. Including today (Saturday), she had 51 hours this week. Which is good since she's been so bored being cooped up in the house since the surgery. No word about the new job I put in for; I'm not holding my breath since I figure if they were going to interview me I'd have heard about it by now. We went to see "Hannibal" this evening...it was good...very true to the book until the very end...but we got to the theater about 5 minutes before the show started and it was just about sold out, so we had to sit in the first row. (What is the last thing you would ever want to hear Dr. Hannibal Lecter say to you? How about "This is really going to hurt.") Our furnace has been acting up lately, this morning it was 58 degrees in here. We've had a furnace tech coming to try to fix it but I'm less than impressed with their efforts. He started on Monday and it still isn't fixed. And he doesn't tell us when he's going to show up so we keep getting 'sorry we missed you! Ha ha!' letters on the door too. Also, we started looking for a used car for Beth today because it's getting to be a pain only having one with both of us working. Got our eye on a '94 Saturn.

Beth keeps on doing better. She feels better now than she has in a long time. We go back to Little Rock on Tuesday, and hopefully the doctor will say that she doesn't need to see him anymore. She also goes back to work Monday (half days) and she'll be very glad to be out and working again because convalescing is apparently pretty boring. I bought a new scanner this week on eBay. Got a factory refurbished Canon model for $44 (retail $129) and I can't find a thing wrong with it. So anyway, now I can post some new pictures. Also this past week I put in for a job opening at my company's Round Lake Illinois plant. I'd be shocked if I got the job but it's a lot more money so I put in for it anyway. I should find out this week if I get an interview.

Slow couple of weeks. Beth had her surgery on January 8 and everything went really well. Now, she's still sore, uncomfortable, and her incision itches a lot. Her mom and sister Judy were her for about the first week but they left to stay ahead of the snow which was supposed to come, and never did. But after that, our church family helped us out a lot. She's a lot better than she was, though. Nothing else going on. Beth's birthday was a couple weeks ago and she got a curio cabinet for her collection of glass. I'll have to post a picture of it...but for now, my scanner is broken.

OK, I finally got through the first week of work after vacation. Beth and I had a pretty good vacation visiting my family in Arizona. We saw London bridge, which is in Lake Havasu City. It's kind of cool but a little...well...cheesy. Christmas was good. Mom & Dad kept paying for everything all week, which was also good. We saw "Best in Show" (outstanding), "Cast Away" (very good) and "Finding Forrester" (very good) and I got to go Jeeping with Dad. We went out on a trail somewhere near Superstition Mountain with his club on a maintenance run (I found and cleaned up a camp site with 37 beer cans tossed aside). A roadrunner walked through their backyard a couple times and I got a picture of it with my (Christmas present) camera; see the picture of the month. I will never again travel the very day before I go back to work. That sucks. Back home, it was a pretty uneventful week at work which I just had to muddle through. Yesterday the young couples group at church had a murder mystery. Everyone dressed up for their parts and we played a sort of role-playing version of Clue. That's a lot of fun. Good times. And by the way, my Spartans claimed the #1 spot last week.