The family went out geocaching again today, this time again in the direction of North Manchester. We found 4 caches all set at places where Clear Creek crosses a road, one of which was out in the country a bit and also sported a dead and decomposing fox, which freaked out Missy but we had to keep Alex away from. We also found one of the most unusual caches I’ve ever seen, which was hidden inside a fake book in the archive room of a library. It also has a travel bug in it that wants to go to Virginia, so I’m taking it there.

Tonight was the first night of church league softball. I went 3-for-3 even though we lost. One solid hit up the middle and beat out a couple of little bitty grounders. Anyway, this is the only time I have been hitting 1.000 during the regular season.

I’m back home again from Michigan and Chicago. Last Wednesday I left for Chitown to go to the Society for Biomaterials Annual Meeting, which was covered with bad omens (I guess) but I went anyway. Weeks ago, somehow I learned that my abstract I submitted for publication was accepted but never assigned a number, so it was left out of the publication and the poster listings, and we had to have some strings pulled to even get me back in since the cut-off date was past. Wednesday morning I was to pick up all the group’s posters and head out to the conference, but when I got to work I saw that there was a flat on the car. The treads looked horrible. Two of the tires had to be replaced before I could drive that far. Smith Tire got me 2 new tires in about an hour, and I headed out. I got there and checked in, but noticed later on (~5 pm) that my poster was ot in the bundle with the rest of them. I called work and tried to call the printing place, but no dice, everyone was gone already. Not much was going on at the conference Wednesday, so I tried geocaching (one very close to the hotel), but the weather was cold and rainy, GPS signal reception was poor, and I had a no-find. I did meet up with a few others from work and went to Chinatown for dinner, at Lao Tze Schuan (sp?), which was excellent. We ordered simply tons of food for 4 people and pigged out. Most excellect stuff. The next morning, I got stuck in elevator on the way down to the conference in the morning, for about 15 minutes. And the conference was still lame. I did catch some good talks about orthopedic stuff, though. The secretary at work got a hold of me regarding my poster, and she arranged to have it speedy-printed and couriered to me by a couple guys from work that were going to Chicago that day for a different conference. The weather was much cleared and warmer, so I also went out and found the cache in the afternoon. The poster arrived around 4pm and I got it set up in time for the poster presentation. Dinner was at the Cheescake Factory with some co-workers. Friday I had a meeting with some people at Rush with whom I am working on a project, then stuck that lame conference until the earliest time I could leave, which was just after the second poster presentation at about 5pm. I headed to Kalamazoo since Julia’s 6th birthday party was this weekend. Traffic was bad, and it was late by the time I made it there. Beth was waiting there for me. We slept on floor at Pam and Marve’s...just like old times...but I think those days should be over (too old). I took Marve and Alex geocaching Saturday afternoon. We got 2, including one that required some serious bushwacking. Marve actually spotted both of them. Julia’s party was at Cheeseburger in Paradise, which I found to be very expensive. We left for home from there. Sunday I blew off church softball practice and we did some more caching as a family. We found a few Spirit Quests around North Manchester, and hit the DQ.

Beth and I went to Smith Appliance today...heard they were having a sale and neither one of us was going to be in town for it (next Friday). We bought a freezer, something we’d always wanted to get. Another thing this year’s tax return is doing for us.

I’ve been surfing the internet the past couple days looking for a good vacation rental in Virginia Beach. Beth and I keep saying we ought to go on vacation this spring back to Virginia, so with the tax return we get this year we’re going to do it. I found some good looking places on the web and got in contact with a real estate broker, and we reserved a 3-bedroom house near Cape Henry a block in from the oceanfront for a week, for $954. That beats whatever we’d get at a hotel.

For the second time in recent weeks, the van went into the shop today. This time it was because the brakes had been making a horrible squealing noise ever since the last time we went to Michigan. They were shot. So, another $140 into the van. On the plus side, they also looked at the thrumming noise the front end had been making, and they found nothing except road noise, so it’s probably just the cheap tires we put on it a couple weeks ago.

Laura came to visit us overnight this weekend, coming up from Crawfordsville where she had a job interview at Wabash College. She got here on Friday and we took her out to eat at the Boathouse while Katie watched the kids. She stayed until Saturday, long enough to buy us lunch at Schoop’s before taking off for home. She also had an interview in Dayton recently; she should know soon how they went. Beth was sewing after Laura left so I took Alex to Big R while Missy napped and got him a life jacket. We want to get him back to swimming again but it’s hard to find time.