We picked up Mom & Dad on Wednesday the 22nd. They had been delayed a lot due to weather and wound up there a couple hours late, but beat the snow here, of which there was about 4 inches on the ground the next morning. We took them out to breakfast at American Table Thursday morning, then down to Maple Lane to get some desserts for Christmas dinner. I wonder if there are Amish people who can't cook or are lousy at woodworking? Anyway, Beth asked if the jewelry chest she had seen there months ago was still there...I just said nope. Hee hee hee! Alex got to play in the snow with Grampa. (Interestingly, he calls Gramma and Grampa both something sounding like "cammer" and if there's a difference I can't hear it. But if you say 'take this to Gramma' he goes to mom, and if you tell him 'take this to Grampa' he goes to dad.) On Christmas Eve Beth and I left my folks at home and headed up to Michigan to spend some time with Beth's family (it's part of the deal). They went to see "National Treasure." We had a very nice visit, chased after kids a lot again. And we accidentally put the presents for Mom K in the pile of stuff for Mom G, so we had to steal a couple things back... oopsie... the kids got a pretty good haul, including a doll for Missy that she absolutely loves. She reaches out to it, and gurgles at it, like with no other toy she has. When we got back, Laura had arrived, and everyone was working on assembling a big ol' Little Tikes playset for Alex's present. Nobody could get this one piece in place. In the interest of not making a lot of noise with the kids now asleep we left that until Christmas. We did stockings and presents in the morning, Alex LOVED the playset, even not fully assembled, and he and Missy both got a large haul of stuff. Then, I got the hard piece in the playset in place by myself without any trouble. I don't know what the problem was. We had a big Christmas dinner in the afternoon. The day after Christmas, we went to Fort Wayne for shopping the sales and doing the returns and cashing in of gift certs. I exchanged a very nice Land's End parka for a similar one that fit, traded in a shirt from Penney's for two that I liked, and Beth got a bunch of stuff from CJ Banks. We were all going to go to dinner at a Japanese tabletop restaurant afterwards, but the kids were fussy by 3:00 and weren't going to last that long. So we went home, and looked for a babysitter the next day, when we returned to Takaoka for dinner without the kids. I must say, going there without the kids was an excellent idea. An excellent idea. We hit the Olive Garden afterwards for dessert.

The holiday season is totally upon us. I've been off work since Friday the 17th, busily getting ready for everything, but I think a time will come when we just say screw it and decide that family can deal with a messy house. After traveling last year with a 9-month-old, we decided we absolutely were not going to travel with a 21-month-old and a 6-month-old. So, everyone else is coming here. Anyway, on Friday Beth and I realized more or less at the last moment that it was date night, so we shot the kids over to church just after I got home from work and went out to eat and do some shopping. Didn't get much done, as we couldn't find much of what we wanted. We only looked around town though. So we wound up at home, shopping the internet. I'd already done some online shopping last week so we are buying most of the presents from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and Travelsmith.com. I also have spent a few days working feverishly getting the room downstairs ready for visitors...the last piece of drywall (mud will have to wait) ought to go up tomorrow. Saturday, I had a deacon's meeting at church and then sneaked down to Maple Lane Farm to get Beth's Christmas present...a gorgeous cherry jewelry chest. We saw it last time we looked around there and she loved it so much that I decided to get it for her if it was still there, and it was. And it was 15% off. We also bowled Saturday, not a bad night for me (159-162-121) but horrible for Beth (won't tell scores, she has a sore shoulder). We rented "Elf" and "Dodgeball" Monday, watched the latter tonight as we wrapped presents...hated it. The movie, not wrapping.

The departmental Christmas party was tonight at Noa Noa, a seafood restaurant in town. Actually it was in their catering hall. A very nice catered dinner, I must say, but fortunate that the price came down. I heard originally it was to be $55 a head, but our VP got the department to pick up $25 of that so I paid "only" $60 for Beth and me to go. Then today, we had an offsite meeting and it was announced that the department would be picking up the entire tab after all. I gather the attendance was going to be pretty low. Anyway, since it was free, it was crowded. And I get the $60 back, but not until after the new year.

Today I became a man. My first prostate exam. It sucks.

12-04-2004...The Elders and Deacons Christmas party for church was tonight. The white elephant gift exchange worked out pretty well for Beth and me this year; we drew number close together so I stole a tea light she wanted for my turn, and one pick later she stole it from me. The rule is a gift can only be stolen twice so she locked it in at that point, then I chose again and wound up with a stuffed reindeer (better than it could have been).

We've just wrapped up a really good Thanksgiving visit with Laura. Beth and I jetted up to Michigan for Thanksgiving with her family while Laura was driving down here, and we drove back in the evening and beat her home. We then had another Thanksgiving dinner Friday (Cornish hens) and went to see "National Treasure" yesterday. It was ridiculous but fun.

11-09-2004...Alex got his first haircut this evening. Beth and I took him to the lady that cuts Beth's hair, but I'm not sure she'll want to keep doing it after this. You would think we were killing him the way he acted. He screamed and cried the whole time, clinging to Beth like a death grip. The kids both got shots last week, and Alex's reaction wasn't nearly as dramatic to the shots as it was to the haircut. But, the curls on the back of his head and the stray hairs over his ears are gone, and he looks a lot better.

Yard work weekend. We hired a babysitter to watch the kids while Beth and I raked, blew, and swept leaves for about 6 hours Saturday. The yard looks pretty good though, as good as it ever does. Someday I need to work on growing a decent lawn with grass.

11-07-2004...The last few days has been different. I took Thursday and Friday off work to get some work done at home. I've been wanting to work on the room downstairs but haven't been able to do much since Melissa was born. Beth helped out by taking the kids out of the house to run errands or visit friends. Not having the kids here means I get a lot more done. I got about 5 hours work in on Thursday putting some childproof locks on doors around the house and working downstairs before Beth got home, with a babysitter, then we had a date of sorts. We wanted to go geocaching to get the one on the farm we couldn't get last week, but about a half-mile hike into it and 500 feet from the cache it started raining. So, we hiked back empty-handed and went to get soup. Friday Beth took the kids out again and I would have had more work done downstairs than I did, but I lost a couple hours going to visit the doctor for a tetanus shot and the pharmacy to get some antibiotics. Seems like flesh doesn't stop a drill bit at all. I was holding a piece of wood in place to drill a pilot hole for a screw and put a hole in my finger on the other side. Nothing serious but it bled a lot. No nerve or tendon damage though. Saturday was the annual ladies shopping trip to Woodfield Mall in Chicago. Pam and Steph came down to go with Beth; I had the kids myself all day Saturday except for bowling. I was on for the first game, but lost it right soon after. My scores for the 3 games were 229-123-126. Only my 3rd 200 game ever.

10-31-2004...I went to Terre Haute a couple weeks ago for recruiting at Rose-Hulman. I was only there as a representative to get Zimmer's name and website out since all recruiting for Z is now done online, so I felt kind of like a liar for being there when all I could tell the seniors was to go to the website and put in an application. Us being there kind of implied we had stuff for them, to me. Anyway, not my problem. Beth and I tried geocaching at a farm a but south of town that has a 5-stage multi set up, since we had a nice Indian summer day, but it was too windy, Alex wouldn't stay in the wagon, and Missy cried the whole time we were there, so we got about halfway to the second stage before admitting that it wasn't going to work and going home. We visited with the Kaspers for Halloween today. Alex had a Tigger outfit on and Missy was the little lamb that Alex wore last year.

09-25-2004...I went to Birmingham, Alabama last week for work. There's a company down there that makes composite rods that we need for a trauma product and I am on the team that is charged with validating their process. The good part about all this is they seem to really know what they're doing, they've already done a lot of the work we need them to do, and we had plenty of time after the meetings for geocaching in a totally new location. I brought the whole team out looking for a cache at a hilly park in town, which was really cool. Rocky trails up and down steep hills, a stone amphitheater, wooded areas, the whole bit. We found the cache, which was just full of good stuff. I dropped off a travel bug I'd picked up at home and took a toy Mini Cooper for Alex. One of the other guys in the group wanted to go look for some more caches, but we looked for three others and found none. One at an air park was not accessible due to being closed, one at another park was missing (we presume, after looking for a long time in an area without much place to hide, and one had too much muggle activity to look for. Later in the day we ate at a BBQ restaurant recommended by my manager, who just happened to get her PhD at UAB, then I took the car to visit Jim and Judy, who just happened to be staying in B'ham with friends because Hurricane Ivan trashed their hometown.

Beth and I went to look at new campers at an RV place in Columbia City last Saturday. We went to look at class C motorhomes but surprisingly didn't like them much. What really caught our attention was the hybrids. The kind with the hard shells and slideout beds. Not only are the quite roomy, we could pull one with the minivan if we got a tow package installed. Not having to buy a truck to pull a camper with dramatically increases our chances of camping next year. We also bowled Saturday, and both did pretty well.

One of the geocaches we couldn't find last weekend really was missing, and now is replaced, so I took the opportunity to go back when Beth went out to her quilting class tonight. It's a cemetery in the middle of a cornfield, literally. There's a narrow access path, barely wide enough to drive down. I went after dinner with the kids...trying to beat the twilight, I didn't quite make it. But since I knew where it was supposed to be, I shined the headlights in that direction and ran there, got it, ran back to the van, and found my way out being blocked by an ATV driven by what was probably the couple that own the farm. Quite peevish, too. Demanding to know who I was and what I was doing there, taking my license plate, asking a lot of angry questions...she didn't believe me (and said so!) when I told her I was just visiting the cemetery because I like historical cemeteries (at NIGHT?!!). I just sat there and shrugged at her when she said I wasn't leaving until I gave her my name, address, and phone number. Eventually they moved out of the way and I went home. They were sure I was up to no good, but I think it really threw them to find the trespasser (not really, it's public land) was a thirtysomething in a minivan with two small children and not a teenager with a spray can.

09-06-2004...It has been a really good Labor Day weekend. Friday we ate the seafood buffet at Teel's with friends. Saturday Beth and I took the kids on a drive about the countryside geocaching. On the way we stopped at Maple Lane...the Amish furniture place we kept trying to go to last November (see 11-30-03) and have never been to. They have some very..very..nice stuff there, and the prices were quite reasonable. They also have a bakery where you can get a homemade from scratch pie cheaper than one at Kroger. Anyway, we drove on looking for small, rural, historic cemeteries where the Indiana Spirit Quest geocaches were hidden, found two, found where one should be but was missing, and failed to find one. Sunday we went down to Ouabache (say "Wabash") State Park to visit some friends who were camping there. Jack and I did some more geocaching while we were there, found two. And I must say that camping with a toddler is exhausting. Alex was into everything and I was paranoid about the campfire. Monday we all went out to hit the Blueberry Festival, which was ok but I wasn't into it this year. Kinda same ol' same ol'. We sold the camper this week. I put an ad in the Auto & RV magazine. It went in Friday, we got the first calls on Friday. It was sold by Monday. Got $2600 for it, which was more than I would have taken. We still get calls for it every day.

It's been a very busy few days. Our nephew Collin went into the hospital with seizures so Beth went up to Michigan on Thursday to see Stephanie. She left Alex and Melissa with friends Thursday and I took Friday off to watch them so she could stay overnight. Alex had been somewhat sick for a few days (we thought it was teething) but on Friday morning he had blisters on his hands and feet and in his mouth. When Beth got home Friday afternoon she took him to the doctor and as it turns out he has "hand, foot, and mouth" disease. Probably caught it in the day care room at the YMCA. Not real serious but contagious (to other kids), the primary symptom other than the blisters is being crabby (yes. he is.) and without much appetite. Our first day of league bowling was Saturday, and since we hadn't picked up a ball since last year's league ended, we didn't do so well. 101-119-148 for me, 101-86-94 for Beth. Today I missed church; since Alex can't be in the nursery I stayed home with him while Beth took Melissa. Today was my fantasy football draft day. Last year I missed draft day and lost every game, this year I plan to dominate.

Today, for the first time ever, a Knight family portrait was taken. Mom, Dad, and Laura have been here visiting (Laura just moved to Minneapolis) and we took the opportunity of everyone being here to have a portrait done. We went all the way to Mishawaka to have it taken, and came close to the drive being for nothing. Alex was NOT in the mood to hold still and smile for the camera. Too much stimulation, all hyper. He played with the props until our turn for the photo came, and he did NOT want to be picked up and did NOT want to be taken away from the toys. He pitched a fit and cried. Finally, we got the idea to bring the big fire engine prop into the room, have him sit in it, and have the rest of the family surround him. That worked. The planets converged, and Alex looked at the camera with a pleasant look on his face while the photographer was ready to shoot. We got a very good shot of everyone (except Melissa, who was asleep and partially obscured, don't care). Before heading back, we ate at Olive Garden...Dad had never been to one.

I'm not sure why Beth and I periodically forget that it doesn't really work to take the kids to Fort Wayne after I get out of work on a Friday. We were going to hit the Home Depot, Babies R Us, dinner, and maybe the mall. Well, I got the new string trimmer I wanted and we ate dinner, but Alex was done with Fort Wayne before dinner was over and we wound up just heading right back.

I had a very good birthday today. Beth arranged for babysitting for the kids (weird...we have "kids") and we went out to dinner and to see Spiderman 2.

July 8 - 16...Judy here. No time to write...

July 2 - 6...Laura here. No time to write...

I'm back at work, and mom is gone. We have a couple days before Laura gets here. Beth is hurting...bad...and relying on friends to help with Alex during the day. Mom needed a lot of help too since just a few days after coming to cold (??), damp Indiana she came down with a sinus infection and bronchitis. Melissa is adorable. Alex is jealous.

We're home. In contrast to when Alex was born, when we thought 'wouldn't it be nice if we could stay longer' this time we thought 'I wish we could go home' during the hospital stay. The "bed" for daddies to sleep on in the room is a recliner and the least comfortable thing I've ever slept on. Melissa finally left NICU just yesterday, once her blood sugar was finally under control. Mom came up yesterday to visit and brought Alex. She says everything is going pretty well with him and he hasn't been too fussy or too hard to feed or get down to sleep. I'm really glad, I was worried he would be totally freaked out by not seeing mommy or daddy at all for a few days. Beth was very happy to see him too. So was I. They visited most of the day before heading home again.

I ran home again tonight, since Melissa is still in NICU and Beth has all the nurses she needs. We figured it would be a help for mom to have me here overnight with Alex since she's not used to taking care of babies (the last one was me).

Melissa Irene was born today at 2:11 pm, weighing 6 lbs 10 oz, and 18 3/4 inches long. She looks a lot like Beth. She is staying in the NICU for now, so they can monitor her blood sugar, which was apparently way off. Mom is in town; she got to Warsaw tonight and I ran home to meet her. I was running late so we met at the Applebee's. I then ran to pick up Alex (left with friends again), and he had just gone down when I got there. He woke up right away, and as soon as he saw me he just cried and cried. Poor guy has hardly seen daddy in 2 days and hasn't seen mommy at all. If only he knew what he was in for.

I'm having a bit of deja vu. Beth had a doctor's appointment at 11:30 this morning. I had to get a meeting at work rescheduled so I could go with her, and as it turns out I never made it back for the meeting anyway. Her blood pressure was just about through the roof, so the doctor measured it a few more times, then sent her over to Lutheran Hospital for them to monitor it for a few hours. Unless she was lying on her left side, it wouldn't come down. So, the doctor's decision was, we're having a baby tomorrow. She's still at the hospital. I had to run home to get Alex (we left him with friends today) and pick up all the things she needs for the stay. My mom was planning on coming out to help with Alex while Beth was in the hospital, but she wasn't planning on coming so soon. (Mom, we have a date for the baby! Oh good! When is it? Tomorrow. Tomorrow?) So she called the airline and did some fanagaling, and will be here tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm going to make a lot of trips between Fort Wayne and here.

The softball team got it's first win of the season last night! I think we're 1-5 now. I still haven't gotten on track with batting. Still getting some hits, but most are weak ones that I beat the throw. Last night I was 2-3, but could have been 3-3 except I slipped and fell down in the batters box after hitting the ball. I must get myself some cleats. Overall, I'm batting 7-for-13.

Beth and I went camping last weekend over the Memorial Day holiday, and it just didn't work out. We no longer have a vehicle that is capable of pulling our camper (see 11-16-2003) since we never got the truck we were planning on getting this spring. Anyway, because of that, we got a friend to pull the camper up to Potato Creek State Park for us, but Friday evening got here and he had never shown up. So, we were hoping for the phone call from someone asking where we were. It finally came..."Hey, when are you guys getting here?" "Terry's supposed to pull our camper for us." "But Terry's here!" So I don't know what happened there. Anyway, Jack had to run home for something so he brought someone else and brought us his Expedition so we could pull the camper up ourselves with that. We got to the park at about 9 or 10, busied ourselves with setting up the camper, Alex (who had slept the way up) woke up and was very upset, it's cold, and I can't get the heater in the camper to work because as it turns out we are out of propane. I never checked it. So we unhooked a tank and went looking for somewhere to get it filled (nowhere); failing that since it was way too cold to stay in the camper with no heat, we went home for the night. Saturday I got the tanks filled and we made it back up there by about 11 am. The heater worked, but it took all day to get the hot water heater running. Fortunately one of the guys camping with us is an appliance repairman so he adjusted the pilot settings and got it fired up. The overnight stay was pleasant enough. Sunday, however, was not so good. A whole group of us went geocaching in the morning, intending to seek out several caches, but as we found the first one (which involved a lot of bushwacking we wouldn't have needed to do if we'd had a trail map) the sky opened up and it started raining. Hard. It proceeded to rain most of the day. The awning of the camper, of course, broke. A bracket pulled right off the wall of the camper. So the awning was put up to prevent further damage. Everything we had with us was inside to keep it dry. We're all inside, with a squirmy kid who hates being cooped up, and it's raining so hard we can't have any windows or vent open or we get soaked. The bed got wet because a window wasn't shut tight. The camper kept getting smaller and smaller. Alex's 2-year molars are coming in so he's not feeling good. We made a trip to the mall in Mishawaka just to get out of the camper. The forecast was for more and more rain...so by about 6 pm we hooked up and left. And drove through a horrible thunder and lightning storm all the way home. So, we camped 1 night of the 3 we paid for, spent all that money on groceries for camping, and it took $48.04 to refill the Expedition with gas. Camping this year was a bust.

One of the ladies from church volunteered to give us some free babysitting this past weekend, and why would we pass something like that up? We went to see "Shrek 2" while she watched Alex. Loved it!

I just got back Friday night from a business trip to New Jersey to visit a company Zimmer just bought. I was supposed to be helping to define their process and critical parameters better but it looks like they have done a lot of work on just that in the last year or so, and there wasn't much to do there. We all were also supposed to be looking for "synergies" which I take to mean places we can cut costs. However they've been operating pretty lean for a long time now and it doesn't look like there is a lot there either. All in all there wasn't really anything that couldn't have been done via video conference.
Beth and I participated in a garage sale yesterday. We made about $160 in all. Sold a lot of baby clothes and some general junk, I sold my table saw, router table, and behemoth desk and got $60 to put toward the new chop saw I want. I'll need it to finish the room downstairs, in which I have nearly all the drywall put up now. I'm thinking I'll install a drop ceiling instead of trying to drywall it. Last Tuesday was my first softball game (missed the first two), we played a doubleheader and lost both. I was 2-2 in the first game and 1-3 (should have been 2-3, but ump made a bad call at first) in the second. All were grounders. Alex is getting closer and closer to walking now; he's been putting several steps together more and more. Then he realizes he could get somewhere a lot faster by crawling so he drops. Today I've started working on getting the camper ready for Memorial Day, in just a few weeks...The fact that we don't have anything that can pull the thing is darned inconvenient. As I type this, I have full gray water tanks and no way to get them to a dump station. But, with gas at $2.08 this week and likely higher soon, I don't see us getting a truck anytime soon.

Tonight was the last night of league bowling, the banquet and fun night. It was definitely an off night for me; It's kind of sad when you bowl no-tap games and don't make your average. Beth is unable to bowl anymore, so it's just as well the season is over.

Over the last two days I have had a number of interviews at work for a position in the research department that I bid on a couple months ago. I became a supervisor just after New Year's this year and have never been really happy about that, but I was probably going to bid out sooner or later anyway just because I've been in the same place at the company since I hired on. So, I bid on the job, even though I nearly backed out when I first heard I needed to do a half-hour technical presentation before the interviews. The HR rep that told me about it said it could be about anything...research I've done recently (there hasn't been any), or a presentation I've already given recently (Nope), or any topic I feel comfortable presenting. And have it ready to present to a bunch of Ph.D.'s by next week. So, I picked nuclear power to present, since I felt it likely that I know more about it than anyone who was going to show up. It wasn't as polished as it may have been (I never actually rehearsed it start to finish) but I think it went fairly well. I also made sure to verify that everything I presented was public domain information available on the internet, since back in the day, I couldn't even write V=IR on a piece of paper without stamping it confidential. I still have some more interviews next week, but so far things look good. This is also the only time I've been looking for a job when I could just shrug and carry on if I don't get it. Here's the thing: I have no idea how many people are being interviewed for this job.

I've been continuing work on the small room downstairs; today I finished all the wiring. One recurring theme I've discovered when pulling down the paneling and ceiling tiles is mice...this house must have been infested. They're definitely gone now, but the ceiling tiles look like at some point every mouse in the state was relieving himself on them, and I found the remains of at least 8 very dead mice trapped in the walls. Some were skeletal, some were not. All were gross. I'm making slow progress on the room; about two-thirds of the drywall is up.

Today I fulfilled a promise I made to Beth a long time ago...we went shopping for and bought a new stove.

Today is Alex's first birthday! We had an entire house crammed full of people like you wouldn't believe. Nobody declined with the RSVPs we sent out. So we had almost the entire family on both sides and nearly all our friends. Alex, of course, cleaned up. He got so many toys I'm sure there are some that will almost never get played with. His Gramma and Grampa got him a new wagon, which will probably get the most use of anything. We also took a lot of pictures of him opening presents and playing with his little cake.

Beth and I went out to Fort Wayne today to shop at Best Buy. I LOVE shopping at Best Buy. Our TV crapped out on us a couple weeks ago so we have been watching on a wee backup TV that had been downstairs. It made for a huge empty space in the entertainment center. So, we went shopping for a new one. Best Buy is set up so you have to go past the plasma and LCD TVs before you get to the regular ones, which makes you look at the pictures on the CRT sets...even the really good ones...and say "that looks like crap!" But unless you want to spend $3000 you're stuck. The new TV....flat screen, baby!...didn't quite fit in the entertainment center when we got it home. I had to remove a few screws and push a board back about 1/16 of an inch to get it in. But it now fits, and you can't even tell that the board has been moved. It looks like the TV was custom made to fit.

We had an electrician come to the house today and install a 220v lead in the kitchen in anticipation of replacing our gas stove with a new electric. Beth had a smooth top electric stove in Arkansas and liked it a lot, and hates the stove we have now. It doesn't work very well. Beth always called it an Easy-Bake Oven. That's not far off the truth. So as soon as we can I'm getting Beth a new stove.

Tonight was the annual Valentine's banquet at church. During the festivities, Beth and I actually won our version of the Newlywed Game! We won because we both picked the date we had in Norfolk at the waterfront as our most romantic date ever. Last time we played that, it was a church retreat at Shepard of the Ozarks (see 10-07-2000) and we came in dead last.

We went up to Michigan to see baby Colin this weekend. Beth's niece Stephanie had her second baby a week or so ago. He is just the spitting image of big sister Julia (who is really warming up to me) only very very tiny. Compared to holding Alex he's like nothing at all. Alex was never that small. Sunday we went bowling with our partners for a non-league day practice, and we all stunk. After a bad start I decided to experiment with bowling a curve, which had some success. I find that you get better pin action and greater margin for error bowling that way. The problem is hitting the mark.

Well, Alex's first Super Bowl party didn't work out so well for him. We were at the Bruner's for the game, and left at halftime because he was so fussy the entire time. He went to sleep almost immediately when we got home. And we missed all the goings-on at the halftime show ("show" is sure the right word for it, huh) but I did catch most of the second half at home. Good game. I was rooting for the Panthers, but overall I didn't care that much.

Beth and I bowled with Steve and Laura again today, for the first time in a while. We've had to reschedule or cancel or find substitutes several league days in a row. But today, for a short time, everything was perfect. I found a groove in the second game, and closed every frame in the game for the first time (7 strikes including 5 in a row, and 3 spares) and scored a personal best 232. Had in the 120's the other 2 games. A zone is nice when it hits, I gotta say.

I have begun to remodel the small room downstairs that has served as an office/junk room since we moved in. Since we need another room for another baby, we're turning it into a guest bedroom. It's small, but serviceable. I've been pulling down the ugly ceiling tiles and ugly paneling so I can put up drywall, and today a work crew was here to install two new double hung replacement windows to replace the drafty old ones with the crappy cranks. I sealed up the sides with caulk and great stuff and you can already notice a difference in the room. It's still not really warm, but at least it isn't freezing any more.

Last time we were in Michigan my nephew Ric told me about geocaching. It sounded fun so I checked out the website, and wound up buying myself a little handheld GPS receiver off of Amazon.com. I found my first cache today. It wasn't hard to find, it's just hidden in some underbrush by a city park here in town. I took a foot warmer and left some Sponge Bob band-aids. Of course, now that I have the GPS and could have some fun with it, we had a winter storm that dumped several inches of snow on us so there's little chance of finding anything now until spring. Heh, maybe next spring I'll get to go caving again too.

Yesterday was Beth's birthday. For the occasion we went out to eat at a nice restaurant that we hadn't tried before, The Channel Marker in Syracuse (Indiana). They seem to have a good selection of food there, although my steak wasn't the best I've had it was not bad. Beth really liked hers. And it's located right on Lake Wawasee; it must be really scenic in the summer. The day before yesterday we went to see the Harlem Globetrotters in town. They played to a packed...and I mean packed...violation of fire codes packed...house at a local middle school gym. Why a middle school gym and not something larger? Who knows. We needed to get there much earlier than we did to get decent seats. But it was a fun show. They're not quite like I remember from the Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal days when I was a kid, when they had their own TV show and Saturday cartoon, but it was still a good time. I saw a lot of people I know from work there; I think most of Warsaw was there.

Greg Bell and I just got back yesterday from the auto show in Detroit. We were going to drive up very early Saturday, get there by 10, and drive back when we were done but more snow was closing in so we left Friday night instead and stayed at a cheap motel (got it on Orbitz) in Dearborn. Big winners: Ford and Suzuki (Ford was generating to most traffic with the new Mustang, Cobra, and GT, all of which are SO COOL. and of course the new F-150s as well. Suzuki has some very nice new family cars out that I would take a look at when replacing the Geo: well screwed together, attractive, and passed the door test - makes a nice clunk when you slam it) Big losers: Saturn and Kia (Every Saturn we looked at and sat in was cheap, flimsy, and overpriced; and Kia....Oh, Kia, Kia, Kia. You would think that the CHEAPEST cars at this show where you're trying to draw interest, the ones in the display next to the likes of Maserati and Bentley, wouldn't be LOCKED.) Honorable mentions include Dodge (for the NASCAR simulator) and Jeep (for the cool waterfall, the video games, and the Wrangler Unlimited).

Last night was date night. Beth and I went out to dinner and then to see "Big Fish," which we both really enjoyed.

Back to work today. Between vacation and being sick, I've been off for three whole weeks. Today was tough to get through, although it was made better by the fact that I had NO phonemail messages waiting for me...they did some upgrades at work after Christmas and everyone's voicemail was wiped out. Speaking of wiping out...we were up in Michigan to help move Beth's mom out of her apartment (she's going to an assisted living place but is visiting Judy in Alabama currently) and drove through a really bad snowstorm on the way back. So bad that the roads were insanely slippery. Enough so that going less than 25 mph we still wound up in a ditch. Fishtailed the minivan 2 or 3 times and slid right across the road, hit a ditch, and plowed right up the other side. Took a branch off some guy's pine tree, broke a parking light and knocked a piece of plastic off from somewhere under the grill. Tore up his lawn pretty badly, probably, but I couldn't really tell because of the snow. Alex didn't even wake up until I opened a door and he got cold. The people who owned the pine tree happened to be outside and saw the whole thing and helped us push the van back onto the road. A little bit down the road we stopped at the dirtiest, filthiest, scariest little backwoods hole in the wall gas station to check the tires and use the restrooms...and decided that if we were going to wait out the storm, we sure weren't going to do it there. We got the rest of the way home without further incident.

Today Beth and I and two other couples went to South Bend to a fondue restaurant, the likes of which Beth and I haven't been since leaving Orlando in 1995. It was a really nice place, and they serve appetizers and desserts included with all the entrees. We're going to have to get together to find eclectic restaurants more often. Yesterday, these same friends volunteered to watch Alex all day so Beth and I could have a free day together. Not much was open so we went for a drive around the countryside. We checked out the covered bridge in Roann (it's a covered bridge) and the Victorian Village in North Manchester (a couple houses was all we saw...wonder if we missed it). And Alex did indeed get to see his first New Year's Day come in. We passed on the hockey game this year (after we bought tickets, we couldn't find a babysitter) so we went to a gathering at a friend's house instead. Played some Pit, some Catch Phrase, had a LOT of food...and it all broke up at about 11 pm. Too many little kids there. Sam fell asleep at a regular time but not Alex...not with so much hubbub going on. And he was so would up that after we got home he still couldn't get to sleep until after midnight. He still hasn't been sleeping well lately.