Missy's here! This weekend is her fall break, so Beth drove down to Muncie to pick her up Friday afternoon. She's got Monday and Tuesday off, so I'll be taking her back Tuesday evening while Beth is at Bible study. Missy says she is looking forward to having some quiet time in her bedroom without anyone blasting music or making a ruckus down the hall.

Road trip right away for Missy as well. The annual Wiessner family chili cook-off was this Saturday in Kalamazoo. Beth decided not to make any chili this time, though. Too much bother to transport it. We headed up there in time to arrive around dinner time, then visited with the whole family (and a lot of their friends, too) while we ate and judged chili. The winner had 3 different kinds of meat in it...I think vension, ground beef, and bacon. How could it not? Everyone was pretty happy to see Missy, and she joked that she should have a card with the 3 answer to the standard questions on it. Yes, I'm enjoying college, yes, I get along with my roommate, and my favorite class is art history. We spent the evening and got back home around midnight. 

Last Thursday I decided to try out the clip-in pedals that Trey and every other cycler I've been riding with says I need to wear. You'll love it, they said. You'll add 2 mph to your speed right away, they said. You use more muscles to pedal this way, they said. Well, the clips were in pretty tight. I even knew how they work and the trap that's laid for newbies wearing them. So Trey loaned mt a set of pedals and a pair of shoes, I installed the pedals into the bike, practiced a bit, and tried to do a little ride. I got to the first stop sign on the road, couldn't get my shoes out of the pedals, and fell right over on my bad shoulder and gave myself a big bang on the shin. The shoulder hurt the most. Like, a lot. But the shin is going to have a huge bruise. Holy crap, did I hurt myself there. No bueno on the clips.

Alex is still dealing with his car battery. Scott came over the other day to help, but they weren't able to get the cable re-attached either. He came over again today and did get it to O'Reilly's but still not able to get it fixed. They have a part and are going to try seeing if there is a YouTube video they can watch.