I just got back from the Chicago area today. I spent 3 days there attending a class on Arburg injection molding machine operation and settings. The class was held at a machine sales facility in Batavia, IL, a historic area along the Fox River with a lot of forest preserves and parks and trails...basically a perfect place for geocaching. Tuesday and Wednesday evenings after class got out I got out the GPS and cached until the shadows got long. I found 10 (including 1 on the drive home), didn't find 4, and retrieved 4 travel bugs which I intend to hide in a new cache of my own soon. I drove my own car there and back, setting out at night (after the season finale of "24") since the AC in the car is now broken. Last Friday I almost couldn't get the car started after work; the engine was chugging and sputtering and shaking and dying when I turned the key...then suddenly it started and sounded normal. When I got home I spotted a belt hanging down from the engine. It turns out the AC compressor bearings had seized and the belt was slipping over the pulley without turning it, causing the chugging, until the belt broke and the engine could spin normally. The belt only drives the compressor so I'm driving the car as is, with no AC. The Geo death watch begins. Monday Alex had an appointment with an eye doctor because he is still a little cross-eyed...taking a toddler to an eye doctor is quite an experience.