A new life; same as the old life?

...and apparently it is going to be one of the worst in forever. The weather has been decent this fall or autumn, depending on which country you are from. October has been another busy month, which ended up with waving the family off to the UK for an extended 5 week plus trip. As I write this, it is already 11 days and they have flown by! I have been busy working, and took a couple of weekend trips out to take pictures. Also, as is always the case when the family goes away, I have a boat load of DIY jobs to try to get done. I have already hung two new doors, ripped the trim off the upstairs hall, and put up a new light in the office. The rest of the list is way too long to go through, but it ranges from cutting a new doorway in Cooper's room to simple stuff like touching up cracks, paint dings, etc. I decided to check out the Naperville River Walk and it was excellent. We have talked about it many times, and drove through the city a couple of weeks ago to check it out when we wer...

and I am a blogger, it has been over a month since my last post! Seriously, where does the time go? September has been a super busy month, with the end of summer and everyone trying to squeeze in their events before the weather starts to turn. WARNING; monster post, lots of pix, grab a coffee/G&T! Every year, the rules are that everything opens up for summer on Memorial Day and closes on Labor Day (this year Sept 5th). With this in mind, I took a day off work in the middle of the week to do some stuff with the family, including a day trip to Six Flags Great America. Well I guess Labor Day came early in Gurnee, because the Wednesday that we went to Six Flags, August 31st, they were closed! WTF! Fortunately they were still open weekends and holidays, so we used our season passes to spend a couple of hours there on the Monday night of Labor Day. We even managed to get Addison onto one of the water rides, twice! Only a few pictures of the fun and games as it was a short evening. Wauke...

I cannot believe it is the end of August already and officially the end of summer here in the US next weekend. It has been a strange summer, lots of storms, oppressive heat and mosquitoes! As is always the case at this time of year everything is being squeezed into the last few weekends. Last weekend I went to the only golf outing truly worth it's salt. The Timothy O'Tooles 14th annual outing. It was our first time, but the pictures of previous outings convinced us. They promised an all in experience with all the food and liquor you could drink, free samples on every hole, etc. Well they came up a little short of every hole, but probably at least 14 or so out of the 18 had free liquor and some nice sights too. Click here for a few shots from the day. This weekend we have already seen Tony Bennett, last night, at Ravinia Festival. Always a good time, the picnic, the lawn, camping out on the station platform waiting for the train. This afternoon, we are off to an "ope...

We went to the botanic gardens again today, this time for their 7th annual kite festival. We watched the skilled flyers take their kites in very little wind and do amazing stunts. Unfortunately it was VERY hot and we were sitting in full sun, so we were not able to stay very long. It was like watching an air show though, these folks could fly their kites in perfect formations, just like the jets and bi planes due in the air and water show. Click here for some shots from the little time we stayed there. Click here for full event details if you want to see more about the event. We are hoping that this one is a little cooler in September!

I am sitting in the hotel bar in Montreal for the second time in three weeks, wondering if my friend and colleague Steve still believes business travel to be something he was missing out on. Don't get me wrong, you cannot beat a good steak or a nice glass of wine, especially when someone else is paying, but the "shine or glamour" of business travel wore off for me a long time ago. On the plane on the way up here, I was browsing the inflight magazine as I am wont to do on occasion, and there was a story of a guy (Tom Stuker) who had just reached 10m miles with United; a landmark they believe for any airline. Now obviously the perks of being a 10m miles guy are pretty cool, including things like getting your name on the side of 747, and I do love to fly, so the thought of flying the miles doesn't bother me as much as the though of all those destinations for work, for make no mistake, most of it was for work, and it has all been done since 1982!! Next time I think ...

Last weekend there was a classic car show in our local town, one day only. I was looking at it as not only an opportunity to indulge my passion for photography, but also for old cars, and I even saw a couple of MGs! A very rare MG PA Airline coupe was one of the stars of the show. The blurb on the event said.. Auto Historica XI, is the most elite exhibition of rare and unusual automobiles and other motorized vehicles in the Midwest. This invitation-only event is considered to be one of the finest automotive exhibitions in the United States, thus the nickname “Little Pebble Beach”. Auto Historica XI invites a select group of collectors to participate with vehicles that are specially chosen each year to create a themed exhibition. This year’s theme is Woodies, classic American wood-bodied station wagons from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, as well as unique European wooden skiff-bodied touring cars. Approximately 50 cars will be on display, including such rarities as a supercharged Duesenberg, an...

After an excellent weekend of family time (although Lorraine still says I spend too much time "playing" on my phone) we find ourselves in the grasp of another serious storms system, but I am getting ahead of myself. One of the things we enjoy about the summer here in the US is the predictability of the weather (snort). Whilst it is true that the weather is generally more predictable and lends itself to planning outdoor activity, this summer in particular has made a mockery of that. Firstly it was super late in getting started this year; with the rainiest April on record and May not being much better, whilst all the family were here; culminating in having to move Lorraine's birthday party indoors due to a last minute rainy day! June started to improve to more normal temperatures, before it got crazy hot for a couple of days right after the family left. The last few days here have been in the 90s, typical July weather, and then the big storm today. We have had a couple of p...

I know I have been missing from this blog for a while, and largely because life really is just the "same as it ever was" to quote Talking Heads. I don't know that I even have any readers any more that care, or if the 30 or so people that drop by every week are finding me on some random google search. I have been continuing to work on my photography and maybe when I am done with the Photo 365 project, I will move back over to here and post the photography work over here. In the meantime here is a quick update of what I have been doing. Family : all well and getting ready for summer Phrase of the week (Addison) : "I totally can't do this!" Cooper's favourite word : Car! Cubs : suck Golf : mediocre, with some flashes of brilliance Kitchen : done, looks awesome Weather : getting hot Photography : having fun with it Work : busy as heck This weekend is 4th July weekend, and I reposted an item I did from way back in 2005. Addison's school have a group in o...

no post; I know Charlie, very disappointed, but really there is not much going on. Also, I only have about 18 visits per week and about three comments a year, so I am not sure anybody even cares! Winter was long and pretty hard with some fabulous snow falls. The snow blower got a great work out and even earned me a few bottles of wine from the neighbours. The kitchen is done from a contractor perspective, although touch ups, painting and backsplash tiling needs to be completed. I have started the clean up, with the family room back to "normal" I started the backsplash tiling as well, with the back semi-hidden area, to make sure I could do a good enough job, without professional help. It looks good and photographs will follow as I near completion. The whole house still needs to be cleaned. Mot of the upstairs is done, we (Lorraine mostly) have been washing all of the carpeting, walls, etc as everything was just covered in dust. We are up against the wall as my sister, her ba...

I have so much work to do on the house, tidying up after the builders have finished. The kitchen needs the backsplash, the laundry room needs a little more paint, the ceilings and walls need refinishing where drywall has been done, and the place needs cleaning. However this weekend it has been all fun, all the way! I went on my first outing with the camera club yesterday to the Chicago Flower Show. I have to say that it wasn't nearly as grand as I thought it would be, and I am sure not a patch on the Chelsea Show. It was kinda cool though, as we were able to get access to the show 2 hours before the general public, and therefore able to shoot lots of pictures without being jostled or worrying about the tripods, etc. I am not much of a floral person in terms of knowing the names, but I think this is a lily variety, maybe even an Arum Lily. Here are some more pictures of the day trip. The theme of the event was "The Sport Of Gardening" The folks I was driving wanted to le...

I don’t suppose it has been any longer or harder of a winter than normal, but for some reason this one has really taken its toll on me. Funny thing is, I am not really sure how or why. I have not been fed up with the snow, in fact at times, I have been disappointed there wasn’t more snow, despite February being the snowiest on record and having the third biggest blizzard of all time. It has been a cold winter, but again not for extended periods or to the point where it got old. We did do the rebuild of the kitchen and whilst there were times it was tedious not having any facilities and dust being everywhere (now it’s only half the house that’s dusty), it still never really annoyed me. My BIL died from the pig flu this winter and my great friend Marcus also died around this time of year a couple of years ago. I got very sick for a week, probably as sick as I have ever been; I think probably the flu, although I am always reticent to say that I had the flu. I turned 43 a few weeks ago and...

Many of my American friends have never heard of, far less pulled a Christmas cracker, and those who have, have usually experienced the non snap version sold in the US, because although guns are OK, heaven forbid we put a little gun powder in a cracker! For those who are interested, and for the UK folks who may or may not know this (I just learned it today from a Christmas cracker!!), here is the history of the cracker. If you would like to see a few pictures from Christmas Day, click here . Tom Smith, a baker of wedding from Clerkenwell, London, invented the Christmas cracker in 1847. The events that led to these wonderful creations were quite a story. In 1940, Smith went to Paris and came across 'Bon bon', an almond sweet wrapped in paper that was twisted. He liked the taste so much that he began selling the 'new' sweets in London and they became very popular. Tom, who was always on a lookout for new promotion opportuniti...

All of the really cool winter things are just starting to kick in, Christmas lights, winter wonderlands, train sets and holiday festivals. Today was the Highland Park holiday festival, where they switched on the holiday lights, without an actual Christmas tree of course. There was ice sculpting first thing, some cider, chestnuts, and then Father Christmas arrived on a fire truck to switch on the lights. I took a bunch of really cool pictures of the ice carving, check em out .

Not sure this is working so well with firefox, but seems to be fine with Internet Explorer. If you cannot view it, search on youtube for Rodney Atkins - Cleaning This Gun.

This it the tourist slogan for Illinois , a play on the name of the main shopping street in Chicago. IE there are more miles worth seeing in Illinois than just the Magnificent Mile; or at least that's how I interpret it. So this weekend, we decided to see if it was true. As you may have noticed, I have been doing a lot more photography wise, and one of those guys I have been working with runs his own business doing "Photo Safaris". Well on Sunday Gary was running an aerial safari from Rockford "International" Airport. Gary actually runs some really cool safaris, both locally and around the world. Click here or on the logo for more info. I could have gone myself for the two hour flight in a Cessna, over Rockford, Galena and the Mississippi river, but we decided it was a good way to start to prove/disprove the Illinois tourist board, and take the whole family; with a view of seeing what we came across on the journey worth doing. We left home around 10:30 on Satu...

As you no doubt saw below, Addison went of to school this month. That's about as much excitement as we have had, although we did finish the plans for the kitchen upgrade (more on that in a separate post) We just got back from the UK, and I have been working to upload all the photos we took there and since we returned..here they are. Browse at your leisure, but here are a couple of my recent favourites. Random pictures of the kids from September 2010 A weekend trip to Center Parcs A day out at Longleat Safari Park Fall festival at the local nature center A day out with some colleagues down in Chicago Fright Fest 2010 - Six Flags Great America

Addison's first day of ( pre ) school was on Tuesday, about a month late due to our travels, but we pay by the month, and only for those that she attends, so it was all good. It's strange, it wasn't as poignant as I thought it would be. In my head, I had this whole image of tearful mother, tearful child wistfully looking back at mum as she went into school; returning hours later to regale us in great detail, with tales of the exciting new things she did whilst there. I don't know what it was or wasn't. - It is only pre- school, so it is more playing than actual learning - She wore similar clothes to those which she wears on a daily basis - The whole morning was rushed as we ended up being late - We both went into the classroom with her, and settled her in - When I left it was pretty much, "see ya!" - Lorraine stayed for about 40 minutes and actually ended up participating All in all, I guess I feel cheated. It bodes well for later schooling that she was ab...