A new life; same as the old life?

So we are officially moving to our fourth residence since our arrival here, just over a year ago. Our lease came up at the apartment, and whilst we hadn't made any plans to move, we thought we would have a look around anyway, at least to see what was out there. Ours is the 2nd from the left in this picture. Before we actually arrived in the US, we came over on a sighting trip to try to narrow down the area in which we might live. At that time, Libertyville was atop our list, but we felt maybe out of our immediate price range. On reflection, and based on what we saw when looking for our new place, I think we were wrong, but what the hey, Mundelein has been a good place to live, and we will miss our pool. We started off looking in Libertyville and an area of Chicagoland known as the North Shore, covering towns and villages like Winnetka, Highland Park, Highwood and Lake Forest. Our overriding goal was to find a good sized place in or near a town/village centre, on the train line that...

I am currently a member of a UK Fantasy Football (Soccer for my American readers) group, and have been for the last 4 or more years. I started strong finishing on the podium in my first year if I remember rightly and then faded fast, currently I am in 12th place out of 15, so it's not going enormously well! I attended our last auction by webcam from the US, and it is pretty tough to keep in touch with local UK players transactions given the distance, so I may well be forced to drop out next year. I was asked to join, by a UK friend with US contacts, a Transatlantic Fantasy Baseball League. Having recently discovered a love for the sport, and honestly outside of motorsport, I haven't been this into watching a sport in a very long time, if ever, so I thought it sounded like fun. We are currently in the 3rd week, and I am winning my match up! The first week, I lost by a long way, some 50 odd points, but the second week, was much closer, I only lost by 1.5 points, and I had made s...

I am going to be attending my first ever Habitat For Humanity home dedication in May. I haven't been in a while, but I am thinking they must be almost done up at the Carter Woods site. A few weeks, or probably more like a month ago, I spent some time at the new site on 14th Street . It is apparently a site they inhereted from another builder, with a couple of houses already half built, but vandalised and some flooding etc. Ultimately they have room up there for around 50 houses, so I should be busy for a few more years. I am looking forward to my first dedicated house though.

Thanks to aviewoncities for this picture. This post is like one of those friends flashback episodes they use when they have an idea drought. I have linked some of the older posts should people be interested in reading or re-reading them. There is some new stuff too tho. It is exactly a year ago today since I came to the US. I set out at the time with my then girlfriend Lorraine, to whom, regular readers and friends, will know I was recently married . We have lived in three different apartments in that time, and, in fact, are considering moving again next month, to a much more community oriented place, with a high street and local shops/restaurants, on one of the main train lines into the city for evenings and weekends. Not that the train line has stopped us as such, as we have, again as regular readers know, spent considerable time in the city at various events, showing friends around etc, but this will just make it that much easier, and we wouldn't have to drive 45 minutes to t...

Pardon the title, but I spent most of this week down south in Nashville, Tennessee, at a conference. They had a woman that came on stage on the first two mornings, and woke us all up with a Hooowwwdeeeee. The Helpdesk Institute is one of the biggest organisations supporting IT Service & Support Professionals. There were some fabulous speakers, and of course some not so good, covering topics from the value of global support and improving customer service to motivational speakers. I have to say though that Nashville didn't strike a cord with me. Previous conferences have been in Vegas and Orlando, with the conference centres being right in the thick of the action. In Nashville, the conference centre is a long way from town, and a long way from pretty much anything else, so it felt a little isolated. Everything was a drive away, so I am not sure I really took in as much of the locale as I could/should have. On the plus side, I guess it meant I took in more of the conference topics...

They do say that the Celts know best how to celebrate, and sure enough, displaced Irish here in the Chicagoland area and pretty much anyone who wants to join in the fun seem to make St Patrick's Day one of the biggest parties of the year, with a parade . Apparently we also have a peculiar tradition (50 years) of dyeing the Chicago River green , which last year was be done by Charter One Bank, having won the right on an Ebay auction . We are heading out tonight with friends to a couple of Irish pubs in Libertyville, and Lorraine and I are thinking we will try to get down to the city tomorrow (second time this year already and it's not even summer yet), to see what all the fuss is about. I will have a lot of stuff to tell if we do; so for now, I will simply say, happy St Patrick's Day! Update - It seems in all my plans, I forgot to check the date of the parade, which for some bizarre reason was actually last weekend, 6 days before the actual day, instead of today, one day af...

In the last chapter of story, I was returning from South Africa and starting to settle back into the UK. If you missed "Return From The Wilderness", you can see it here , other parts of the tale are " The Early Years " and " The South Africa Years ". We moved to New Farm Loch, coincidentally, about 3 streets away from the very first house I can remember in Brodie Place before we went to South Africa. That was when life really started to get interesting. I was still hanging out with Billy and Craig mostly, although Dave was still in the picture too. Every week, at least twice or 3 times we would go skating to the ice disco, down at the Magnum ice rink. Craig initially and Billy later were driving at this point, I was another year or so behind them. There are all sorts of stories I could tell you from this time, but they are better left unsaid. We got into CB radios too, Craig and Billy were the Roadrunner and Gearslammer, I don't remember which way roun...

Mike Vega, a very good friend of ours, put together a compilation of some of the pictures he and his wife took at the wedding. He also, very cleverly, added some of the music that we put on our CD favor to it. We are still awaiting the official pictures, but this is well worth a look. I think he did a fantastic job putting it together. Check it out here . It's the one at the bottom of the list. Thanks Mike!

Right, I'm off. We will be in Florida this week for the honeymoon. We got a great deal last year at the Taste Of Lincolnshire, a local food festival, when Marriott were trying to push their timeshares. All we have to do is go and listen for 45 minutes to their spiel. As payment, we get four nights in their new 4 star hotel for the sweet price of $150. Add flights for $200 a piece and we get a week in Florida for the low low price of $550 We will undoubtedly spend some time in the parks, Disney, Epcot, or Universal, but we want to make sure we see some other stuff too. A full report will be forthcoming on our return.

Lorraine & I played golf for the first time this year. I can't say season, because officially the season isn't even open yet; in this area the official opening date is 30th March. I was also going to call it Millionaire's Golf (a friend of mine coined this term), because we had the course all to ourselves. However I guess if I was a millionaire then I wouldn't be playing in 30 degrees in March in Chicagoland! It was a beautiful day though, whatever the temperature. The sun shone all day, and it was quite warm without the breeze. Quite a contrast to Sunday when had 2-3 inches of snow. Having said all that, I was very pleased with myself. I was not playing my best by any stretch, but I still managed to come away with a 96, including a couple of 7s and 8s. My handicap from last year is 26, and I am hoping to get that down below 20 this year. Wish me luck!

We last left our hero returning from the wilds of South Africa, hence "Return From The Wilderness". If you missed the earlier parts of the tale, check out " The Early Years " and " The South Africa Years ". I was 10 when we returned to the UK, and went into what we called "primary 6" at Kirkstyle Primary school. My maternal grandparents had a small three bedroom house, that we moved into with them. I cannot recall the exact sleeping arrangements, but I know they were tight with 3 kids and four adults in three rooms. I think I recall having my own room, I guess because I was the oldest, my sisters being 8 and 2 years old that time. I cannot remember how long we were there either, but I don't think it can have been very long, because I remember having to walk from our new house, in Cuillin Place to the old school, approx 1.5 miles each way every day. I quite enjoyed that school, and actually am still friends with one guy, David, I met there, al...

I am beginning to think my truck might be made from the same material as a stealth bomber. To the naked eye, it is clearly bright red, about 15ft long, over 6ft high and about 6ft wide. However to the residents of my apartment complex, I think it might as well be invisible. The picture on the right is the front bumper, after someone tried to reverse out of a parking bay this morning as I was driving along. It would have been a lot worse, had I not braked and swerved. The red plastic, that you can see better if you click on the picture, is part of his light cluster, not damage to my truck. At this point he is trying to figure out a way to blame me for the accident. The impact was about 50 yards, if that, from my parking spot, but he had the cheek to ask me why I was driving "so fast" or why I didn't try to brake. I offered to get the police, if he was unhappy, but surprisingly, he decided it wouldn't be necessary. No damage again, I love my truck! Now if only I can get...

In keeping with our crosses that we had made for the engagement, we wanted the rings to be unique. We went back to the jeweller ( Studio 2015 ) that had done such a fantastic job with the crosses and started to work on an idea that incorporated my clan motto, My Hope Is Constant In Thee , which in addition to being the clan motto, just has a nice ring to it for a marital commitment. As you can see from these pictures, they did a fabulous job once again, and we would thoroughly recommend them to anyone, although you might want to make sure you have sufficient time, as such fine workmanship and individual design can take a little longer than you might otherwise want. As most of our friends know, I have the most hugest fingers in the world, confirmed by my ring size, UK Z.5, US 13.5, compared to Lorraine's delicate 7! Click on either picture for a better look at the detail.

Traditionally these speeches start with my wife and I, so who am I to break this great tradition. Doesn't she look fabulous by the way! My wife and I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the support that we have been given by our families, particularly that of Lorraine's mother, who has been more than generous, and we have a gift for her today, as a small token of our appreciation. I would also like to thank everyone who made the effort to be here today to share our special day, particularly those who have come from so far away. There's Todd & Shannon from Wheaton, Chris and Dani from all the way up in Woodstock, oh and of course Lorraine's family from Epsom and Billy from Scotland! I met Lorraine just before my birthday in 2004, where we were both on the same skiing trip with a bunch of friends from the Epsom area. She had always wanted to learn, but soon found out that it wasn't something that would come naturally to her. On the third day, she was ready ...

Well, the hullabaloo is over. All of our UK visitors have left, and it is back to work for me tomorrow! As most of you know the webcast didn't come off, however we did record it using a friend's video camera, and it has been uploaded to our wedding website . There are three versions, the first being the full ceremony, huge file (94mb) for broadband users, the second being 20mb but still the full ceremony. The third is a bit of a joke version, but well worth a watch. The final run in was pretty hectic. Lorraine's family were in town for a few days before and my friend Billy for a whole week. Lorraine went down to the city for a few days and left me a list of errands to complete. On the last day, Friday, I was running around and accidentally exceeded the speed limit in Bull Valley, just north of us here in Lake County. No amount of protesting my innocence, my wedding plans or even my Chicago PD shirt prevented them from giving me the $75 ticket. Also, I was waiting patiently...

Mostly due to my incompetence, and some issues with blogger and my new template; the link that I put on the wedding invitations for the gift registry doesn't work anymore. Click here , and it will take you to the posting.

My frequent flyers will know that I am a regular contributor at my local Habitat For Humanity site. Yesterday I took a group of folks from my office, the first from the Global Support Centre I think, up there, along with a friend of mine from the UK who is over for the wedding. The picture on the left is one of the hugely talented girls who work up there every day, say hi to Amy. Amy used to volunteer at the site, and now works full time for Habitat. The site is almost complete. All the externals are finished, and most of the internals don't have far to go. However, it doesn't end there. They have a whole other site, capable of taking up to another 50 houses, so I guess I will be busy over the next few years. The picture on the right is another of the on-site girls, Jess. Jess is getting married this year (sorry Leon). She is an Americorp volunteer, who at the tender age of 23, already knows more about building houses than I ever will. The final picture here is the team we work...

Sorry folks, especially all of those who said they were definitely going to tune in, and Caroline who is organising a party for the event. We have all the technology and it all works, but last week we hit some networking issues up at the venue. They told us that they had a wireless network, and stupidly, I assumed that it worked throughout the building. I went up last week to test it, and found that unfortunately, having installed their wireless hub in a storeroom off the kitchen, surrounded by fridges, stainless steel and about a dozen walls, it didn't extend to the room where our ceremony is. We were ready to give up at that point, after trying a few basic things myself, but a friend of ours had some other wireless networking stuff, better cards, and a repeater that may have made the difference, and indeed it looked that way for a while last night. Then we found out that they actually had a wired connection 20 yards away, something they had neglected to tell us until this point! ...

This is a picture of my desk when I arrived at work this morning. Some of the folks at work, and no, not just the girls, Mike! had decorated my desk with all sorts of stuff as you can see. They had also very thoughtfully brought in my favourite donuts (thanks Star) and had a card and a gift card for Best Buy..yay, new toys! Thank you one and all, it was very much appreciated.

I got this today, it tickled me.. 1. OPENING JARS - She's struggling. You take it from her hands, open it effortlessly and pretend she loosened it for you. She didn't. Jars are men's work. 2. CALLING SOMEONE 'SON' - Especially policeman but even saying it to kids makes you the man. 3. DOING A PROPER SLIDE TACKLE - Beckham free kicks - camp. A Stuart Pearce tackle is the pinnacle of the game, simultaneously winning the ball and crippling the man. Magic. 4. SHARPENING A PENCIL WITH A STANLEY KNIFE - Blunt, is it? Hand it here love. No, I don't need a sharpener, you think I can't whittle? 5. GOING TO THE TIP - A manly act which combines driving, lifting and - as you thrillingly drop your rubbish into another huge pile of other rubbish - noisy destruction. 6. DRINKING UP - Specifically, rising from the table, slinging your coat on and downing two thirds of a pint in one fluid movement. Then nodding towards the door, saying, "Let's go" and striding ...