A new life; same as the old life?

I mentioned a few days ago that we were going to go out and tour the neighbourhood to see their Christmas lights. If you have ever seen National Lampoons Christmas Vacation then you will have seen how far some people go! Some do the simple, tasteful (in Lorraine's opinion) white lights, others do a simple colourful lights scheme, whilst others go completely over the top and have everything from Bart & Home Simpson to Tin Soldiers and Snow Globes. Long time readers will remember me talking about a local place called the Cuneo Museum. Each year they turn their grounds into a Winter Wonderland, sponsored by local businesses. Some wonderful displays of lights can be seen. Check out all of the pictures here .

I am off to Vegas again in January for the Stag/Batchelor party. I always think it is great sport trying to spot the real versus fakes, although in January when they are all covered up in clothing as opposed to being in very small outfits by the pool it is quite difficult, but I am willing to give it a shot! I must look out for the sili cone stand!

A friend at work just sent me this, it is very cool, at least I think so. It is all about wanting a hippo for Christmas, apparently recorded in 1953, but I had never heard it before. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas Lyrics

No it's not the wizard of Oz. Although the concept is the same. I know that lot of you read my blog from work and this may be the last post you will see, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year. I am heading out tonight to take pictures of all the incredibly elaborate decorations on the neighbourhood houses. If you get a chance, check me out over the next few days for those.

I know I am posting this retrospectively, but I promised you one every day, and I always keep my promises, well at least I try to. I did just watch The Santa Clause 2 last night, which made me think of this one. This week has been a Christmas movietastic week. I have seen Holiday Inn, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, and The Santa Clause 2. Rock on Christmas!

Warning, pornographic image, NSFW! A friend of mine from the Cumbrian Lake District as opposed to the Great Lakes district, sent me one of those FW emails with all sorts on it, and I thought some of the pictures were really funny, so I thought I would share one with my readers each day between now and Christmas.

As most of my regulars will know, this year Lorraine and I have spent some time with the Habitat For Humanity program. We were working to complete a number of the houses on the site in time for Christmas, and although we have not been able to go for a few weeks, it is nice to see that we contributed to this great Christmas present for three lucky families. We both worked on all three of these newly dedicated houses, and Lorraine actually worked alongside Manuel, who she said was really appreciative of everyone's efforts.

Tim and Darrell came to visit this weekend past and what a fabulous time we had. I took some time off work to show them around the place and we had a full program planned. They arrived mid afternoon last Thursday, and we picked them up from O'Hare. I think it is always best to get on the right timezone asap, so we had planned not to let them sleep until much later that night. We took them to our favourite restaurant, any old excuse for Wildfire works for me. We had a number of cocktails, even Jonesy, which really surprised me, and as usual a fabulous steak dinner. Tim decided that as it was late and he was tired, he wouldn't have steak as it might be too much food and give him indigestion, so instead he order Chicken and ribs. Half a chicken and a crap load of ribs, four times the size of my steak..nice work Jones! On Friday we decided a little retail therapy was in order, although Jones wasn't too keen, being a firm "I don't like to shop" person. However he s

now who was thinking about brass monkeys (Charlie!). I was going to say rivers and lakes. Already we have noticed more and more waterways being frozen, and not just small lakes either. Today we passed this huge lake and already the top was frozen, although I am sure not very deeply. There are a few other pictures here . We went up to Woodstock to get the chains for our crosses, and passing over one of our favourite places, where people have houses on the river and they play in their boats all summer long, noticed that too was frozen!

Sometimes I think that the high quality of today's televisual entertainment is spoiled by those annoying little interruptions called programs. Check out one of the best commercials on TV at the moment. Click on the link to the left and then click on " The Ads". It should launch automatically, but if not, it's the one that starts with three owls, singing " All Night Long "

Most of you know this has been coming, but now it's official; but let's start at the beginning. Lorraine has always wanted a Cross Of Lorraine, sometimes also known as the De Gaulle Cross. You will have seen them on jockey's jerseys quite a lot, which I think is where Lorraine first heard about them; working for Olivier Peslier a renowned French jockey in the mid/late nineties. I had sorta thought off and on of getting one as a birthday or Christmas gift, but never quite got around to it, and so I suggested that we have them as engagement gifts, instead of rings. We found a great jeweler (thanks Stevie G) up north near our friends Chris and Danni in Woodstock, and went up to discuss a design with them. Much to-ing and fro-ing eventually saw us settle on a design with a Celtic inlay, set in white and yellow gold with two diamonds for Lorraine, and a slightly larger version with the same inlay, and Celtic finials, in white gold and black for me. We ordered them up and waited

all around us. Last week, I was told not to get too excited about the snow, as it was really only white rain and there would be much worse to come. Well today it is snowing again after two of the coldest days for a very long time, apparently the coldest Thanksgiving for 50 years. Today is known as Black Friday in the US, as the shops are sooo busy. I am told it is the biggest sale day of the retail year. Stores open from as early as 5am, to try to entice people in for the 15 items they have at bargain basement price, then sell them substitute items for twice the price. One of our neighbours went to Walmart at 3am, when the queue was already over 500 yards long, only to be told that she would not be able to get the $400 HP laptop she came for, as they literally only had 15 to sell at that price. Goodness knows what else she was doing, as she was still in there at 9am when we arrived. The prices were OK, and there were some decent bargains to be had if you really needed the items on sale

but the fire is so delightful, and since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. . one of my favourite winter songs, and with Thanksgiving this weekend, we have indeed got no place to go! They have been forecasting all this week, a cold and snowy weekend, starting on Wednesday night; and they were right. We woke up this morning to approximately 2" of snow overnight. It didn't look as much as that on the ground, where it sinks down, but it was definitely about that on the truck. I took a few shots very early this morning, and was intending to take a few more when I got to work, but after a 2.5 hour meeting, it was already starting to go..so I will have to wait for a bit more..maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures..especially for you Brooke!

Very short post, I couldn't resist posting this . Someone sent me it today..it had to be done!

Some of you already know, but for those that don't, we are now a family of three. We got ourselves a dog last week. Someone in the office was unable to keep her any longer, due to some artistic differences between the dog and his 6 year old hooligan son. He apparently couldn't figure out that if he kept pulling her ears, she might bite him! Needless to say, after several aborted attempts, she managed to get him. Her name is Reggie, and she is a 6 year old Boxer/Labrador cross. Does that make her a Boxador or perhaps a Labraxer? (sounds like a laxative!). She is very relaxed and a little overweight, which we have already started to work on with extra long walks and slightly less food, including not feeding her scraps all day between meals, so hopefully we can get her back in shape. The great thing is of course, she requires no training to speak. She is already housebroken, had all her shots and is "fixed" as they call it here. She came with a cage and a consistent diet

Most of you will know that this forthcoming week of November is Thanksgiving week in the US. It is also kind of the official start of the holiday season, with only another 4 weeks to go until Christmas. With a number of Christmas trees and lights already erected, and the major stores in the city already decorated and showing holiday windows, this weekend the Holiday Lights Festival on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, will see the lighting of more than a million white lights on the Michigan Avenue trees. We were planning to attend, but instead have elected to go to visit a friend of ours who is having a housewarming party; the lights festival will still be there next year! We will be celebrating our first Thanksgiving by lazing around in bed, and probably decorating our Christmas tree. I know it is very early by UK standards, but our friends Tim and Darryl will be in town soon after and the Christmas party is the week after that, so we will be running out of time as usual. As far as I

Wednesday and Thursday this week saw both Lorraine and I get very excited, with our first few flakes of snow. Of course it didn't last and they were just dusty little flakes, but it was snow nonetheless! It caught a number of people off guard, but was gone again pretty quickly, leaving behind it some verrry cold winds. The high today was in the mid 30s (approx 0-3c) and the low in the early 20s (approx -6c). The wind was the coldest thing though, with wind chill factors in the low single digits (approx -15c!!!!) Roll on real winter and real snow.

Those of you who know me well enough will know that my favourite chocolate is Galaxy. You may also know that US chocolate is decidely untastey (sorry guys!). So every time anyone comes to visit, or just happens to be travelling the pond, we put our order in. An old friend & colleague, Sam Francis came to visit this week, well she came to work really, but we partied hard in the three days she was here. She brought 2 huge bars of Galaxy, the angel! So we are all set now until our other friends come out in December for a few days..rest assured Galaxy is on the list. We took Sam down into the city to see the view from the Hancock Observatory, to the Cheesecake Factory, Wildfire, and also had her round to dinner on the third night. I believe she had a lot of fun, we certainly did. Thanks Sam, come back soon, and don't forget the Galaxy!

One of my our neighbours is off to a cracking start! She hasn't even officially moved in yet, and already she has made herself known in less than normal circumstances. The pictures you can see below, are basically the damage to my truck and her car, following her inability to see the 7 foot high, 15 foot long scarlet truck! It pays to drive a truck clearly. She is going to need a new boot (trunk) lid, some work on the rear quarter panel, a new light cluster, some work on the trunk itself and the bumper and definitely a crap load of paint. I might need a Stanley knife to tidy up the plastic she scraped. The pieces of light cluster you can see, also belong to her car.

One of the UK traditions we missed out on this year is the 5th November, known as Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes. Celebrating the day when Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators tried to blow up the House of Lords with barrels of gunpowder. Elizabeth I had been particularly harsh on Catholics and when she died in 1603 they hoped her successor James I would be a little better (he did have a Catholic mother), but he wasn't and so the plot of violent protest was born in 1605. However some people got second thoughts, some people betrayed the plot, etc and they got caught. The details are all here , and the encylopedia Britannia details it's version here . Keeping the traditions alive, every year when the reigning monarch attends the State Opening Of Parliament, the Yeoman Of The Guard, walks the cellars looking for barrels of gunpowder. On the anniversary of the plot's demise, Brits across the nation gather together in their yards and local parks around huge bonfires, to set of fire

Living in the US for my first holiday season is going to be a unique experience. Political correctness will play a huge part, and as a manager in a US organisation, I will have to be especially sensitive of some of the individual sensitivities. There has already been some religious oriented people raising concerns with respect to the devilish Jack-o-Lanterns, and right around the corner there will be concerns about Christmas trees, the word Christmas being offensive to non Christians, etc. I know at this point, my UK readers will be hitting the floor in disbelief, but it's true. America, for the most part has gone so far from it's old culture towards respecting diversity, that the average middle aged white American feels very much the underdog. All sorts of festivals, eg Ramadan, Hanukkah, etc are celebrated openly, but don't dare mention Christmas, for fear it may offend, and as for secret Santa! Last year we had secret snowflake and purchased gifts for each other from a r

Lest we forget the some of the bloodiest wars of our time, every year the UK, amongst others celebrates remembrance Day, Veterans Day in the US. You will see poppies worn in lapels, on cars, stuck to windows and even digitally on cell phones this year. The Royal British Legion lead this effort every year to raise funds for victims of the war and their families. At 11am this morning, UK time, factories, offices, radio stations and individuals would have held a 2 minute silence. A time of quiet contemplation dedicated to the memory of those who died to keep Europe a free land. Some people, particularly my American readers, may be interested to know " Why poppies ?" If you feel inclined, please pop over her e and give them a few pounds, dollars, pesos, or whatever you can.

Until now, I have been doing "jobs". Putting up siding, laying sidewalks, and all that jazz. Important components all, but not actually building a house as such. Today I actually built part of a house; laying the flooring on the top story of the house in the picture, then putting up those second floor walls. I am hoping when I go back on Saturday that the rest of the walls will be up and we should be on roof trusses. I put in my fourth day today and I am getting to know the regular staff quite well. Lorraine came along for the first time, and after starting out tentatively, she settled right in. She got a glowing report from one of the Americorps girls she worked quite closely with. She said that she had a learned quickly, had a great eye for detail and they will gladly have her back as often as she can spare.

As I mentioned last week, we planned to go to Fright Fest on Friday night. The weather was perfect, the tickets cheap thanks to season pass holders Steve & Kristi, and the promise of American Halloween alluring. Every time you drive by Six Flags on the Interstate, you can see the spiders climbing on the old wooden rollercoaster. As Brits you generally have the impression that Halloween in the US is a big deal, and it is. People decorate their houses, more than some Brits would for Christmas, with lights, skeletons, ghosts, etc; and Six Flags was no exception. Every ride, every corner of the park had been converted for Fright Fest. We had a great time, the queues were not too bad, although we missed out on one of the best rides, because the queue for that was about 90 minutes. Steve and I went on most things, but the girls were a little more conservative. They had a parade at the end of the night, and of course I took a bunch of pictures.. check them out .

I know there is a lot worse to come, but today was the first time I had to scrape the frost from my windows, winter is definitely on it's way. I have been wearing a coat for the last few weeks, and those who know me well will know how rare that is. This morning as I scraped the windows with my credit card (not yet prepared) I was glad of it. Next week, I might even need gloves! I am off to Six Flags Great America tonight for their Fright Fest, so I had best take some layers. Lorraine doesn't much care for the rides, but she does like the haunted houses and such. Some friends of ours have season passes and cheap tickets, so it should be a fun time. Tomorrow, I will be back at Habitat For Humanity , where the weather promises to be kind to me, at around the mid 60s.

The Chicago White Sox vs The Houston Astros in the World Series. You will have seen that I was quite excited watching the ALCS when we were up in Door County . I decided that we would host the weekend games last weekend, and also attend all the games following in a local bar or two, until this weekend's games, when I might host again, assuming it went that far. I said to several people on Saturday and earlier this week that the Sox would win it in 4 straight games. I said it again when they were 2-0 up and again before last night's again when they were 3-0 up. I am not sure I ever really believed it..but by gosh they only went and proved me right . We watched both of the weekend games at home, and decided to go to watch the mid week games in champs and Cubby Bear North. Game 3 was incredible. We went down 4-0 in the first 4 innings, and entered the 5th in some trouble. However we scored 5 runs in that one inning. The Astros came back in the 8th to level the game. What happens

Lorraine and I took our first US road trip this weekend. I wanted to see fall colours and someone at work suggested Door County . I also wanted to do the RV thing, but found out that firstly, it's very expensive, and secondly, trying to book in Door County for the fall, with only a couple of months notice is damned near impossible. We ended up in a Best Western in Sturgeon Bay , driving up in the truck. For a full selection of pictures, click here . We left early(ish) on Friday morning, about 10am :-) and headed up North. The weather was beautiful and we were excited about our first trip out. Lorraine packed a box lunch with crackers, port wine cheese dip and my homemade smoothie. We had a pretty good run up, stopping only for gas, and arrived in Sturgeon Bay at about 2pm. We had arranged to meet Mark , a fellow blogger, so I called and arranged a meeting that night in a nearby bar. The weather was still great , so we decided to get the bikes out of the back and headed off downtow

I don't know how many of you will have heard of this , but it is a world wide thing that everyone can get involved in. Basically it involves building houses for people who need them but can't afford them. The recipients have to put significant time (about 150 man hours I think) into someone else's house to qualify, then I think about 250 man hours into their own. When it is done, they still pay mortgage payments, albeit reduced, which helps to buy land for future projects. Many of the home owners continue to give their time to the project going forward. Hewitt gives me two days of "Hewitt Time For Hewitt Concerns" to do charitable work, and so I chose to spend mine helping this project and learning new skills all at the same time, everyone's a winner! Last Thursday, I went along with a group from our DTS or PC Support operation, and fellow manager Mike Vega, he is the handsome devil in the pic on the right! We spent the day putting up vinyl siding, finishing o