A new life; same as the old life?

Wow, I can't believe summer is coming to an end. The official end of summer here is Monday 1st September this year. Local attractions either close completely or significantly reduce their operation. We have a local water park in our new town, three golf courses, a beach, and a very nice town center, few of which we have taken advantage! We did do our first garage sale earlier this year, and raised $400 ourselves and with friends over $1000! As you can see we had a lot of crap to sell, but people bought it, with some folks coming back several times over the two days! Click here for a few more pictures. This past weekend it was the Taste Of Highland Park, where local restaurants bring out sample sizes of their product and over charge you for their promotional advertising. It was however an excellent day out, lots of good food and a nice walk to town. On the same day, they had the Port Clinton Square Art Festival, celebrating it's 25th Anniversary. We ended up continuing our walk...

As you all know, I love my camera, despite not being very good with it!  I am hoping to take a class this winter though, with the New York Institue Of Photography. It's a correspondence course , and they give you assignments, tutuor support, etc. It sounds pretty good for the price. If anyone is interested in taking it themselves, let me know, cos they are always sending me discount vouchers. Check out all of the courses here . However, when last in the UK, Lorraine and the Cooper girls went to get proper professional pictures taken. I have all of them on various formats, but I uploaded a bunch of them here. Click to check em out .

Yesterday was an interesting day. We started the morning darker at 6am than it is on some winter mornings, due to a heavy storm rolling in, and finished it the same way with the Cubs game stopped short for tornadoes and lightning, and a superb light show to our south, as you can see on these videos. Check em out! Between the flashes, you can see some excellent fork lightning too. Apparently about 1/2m homes were without power after the storm and there were a record 88,000 lightning strikes.

I recently had my first Jimmy Buffett experience. Jimmy Buffett is a huge deal here in the US and specifically in Illinois. It is a big party time every time he comes to town, people dress up in Hawaiian shirts, and head north to Alpine Valley in Wisconsin and behave like it is Spring Break combined with Mardi Gras, combined with Girls Gone Wild! It's kinda like Vegas, in the sense that what happens at Buffett stays at Buffett, and my camera actually helped that cause by screwing up on the picture download, losing most of the pictures I had of half naked women and girls making out with girls. Here are a few samples.

I have a bunch of pictures and videos of the young 'un that I have been meaning to get around to posting for a while, including some of the "The Pox", some recent, some crawling video, crazy fake laughter, and some older pictures that Lorraine has had on her camera for a while. Lastly, Lorraine had a professional session done whilst in the UK, so there are some of those pictures too. So in no particular order..here goes, click the picture to take you to the linked albums. From UK trip (May), inc swimming, horse riding & Scottish rellies. From June, inc "The Pox" The Godfather & weird sleeping positions. Miscellaneous July Pictures Miscellaneous Videos, inc first feeding, crawling, standing & rugby league! Click here for more videos.

Wow, almost a month since I last posted. The Cubs and White Sox continue to be in 1st place in their respective divisions and leagues. The records continue to be broken, and everyone is starting to predict a Cubs/Sox World Series; something that hasn't happened since the early 1900s. I have a bunch of pictures to edit and upload, Addison, The Pox, 4th July, the house, and the garden, soon, I promise. Lorraine has been unpacking, cleaning and organising. We only have the stairs to clean with the whizzy carpet cleaner we borrowed. If you ever need to buy one, the Bissell we borrowed is excellent; I can recommend it. We haven't done any decorating since we moved in, as we have been concentrating on the outside. Lorraine has started playing golf again in her weekly league, and of course Addison is keeping her busy as a full time job. Lorraine is making all Addison's baby food from scratch with organic meats and vegetables, she eats better than I do :-) Addison is growing at an ...

This weekend, the battle of the Central division leaders went the way of the Cubs with a three game sweep of the Chicago White Sox. The Cubs continue to set standards that have not been met by a Cubs team in several years. They are 20 games over 500, they have won 14 straight home games (a first in 72 years). Ryan Dempster is 9-0 at home this year, something no Cub has done since 2001. Aramis Ramirez, hit 4 home runs this weekend, giving him more home runs against the White Sox this year than any other hitter in the major leagues, yet the Cubs have only played the Sox three times, against some other teams having played them more than twice that. Of course none of this matters, unless the Cubs keep it up through the end of the season and find a way to stop beating themselves every time they get close. So keep supporting them, keep cheering them and let's take it all the way this year.

Poor little thing, she is all sick with the pox. We have no idea where it came from, although with a two week incubation and being an airborne disease, it is probably from the plane ride home. She is in remarkably good spirits, considering, and apart from the abundance of spots, you would never know she was even sick. Hopefully she will get well soon, and be back to her old photgenic self!

Writing this I am sure will freak out both inlaws and parents, as this is probably the closest we have come to an actual disaster. At the weekend, I was sitting watching the game, and Lorraine was putting AJ to bed, when the EAS kicked into life. Apparently the weather had taken a turn for the worse and a tornado moving at approximately 36mph (I am told this is slow) was headed our way, and when I say our way, I really mean our way, between 10 and 15 miles away! The EAS recommended hiding in a basement or internal room with no windows. So we rounded up Reggie, AJ, a couple glasses of wine, baby milk, some water & my blackberry to keep in touch and headed into our downstairs bathroom, between the office and the laundry room, only one external wall and no windows. It did touch down 15 miles away in Mundelein but there was little/no damage. It was a very destructive tornado, just not anywhere near us. I know it shouldn't be exciting to experience these events, and I probably shou...

I know Olly's views on personalised plates, but with it being so cheap and easy (my very favourite type...) I just couldn't resist. The process is all on line, you can have pretty much anything you want so long as it is not vulgar and no-one else has it. Imagine my surprise however, when not only could I have Gordy, but I could have it on an Organ Donor plate, one of my favourite things, although I hope they wait until I die, unlike the " Meaning Of Life " Oh and one of the front of the truck, cos I just love the look of it!

We last left our intrepid global traveller in the South of England, following a triumphant trip to the motherland. The timing of this entire trip had been dictated by the one and only date for my in laws 40th birthday gift. The Aston Martin Experience was in Oxfordshire, which meant another several hours in the car, and on one of the few days where it rained for the whole trip. We had left AJ home with Grandma, and intended to make a whole day of it. Arriving in the middle of nowhere, around 10:30am, very little signage or directions, we stumbled upon a tiny sign to get to the farm, and on up to the circuit purpose built for such events. As you can see from these pictures , they had a plethora of exotic cars. The rain was still coming down hard, but nothing could dampen our spirits as the cars roared around the circuit. We had a couple of quick sighting laps in the rally cars with the instructor, showing the lines, where to turn in, etc. We then took our turns in the Aston, 6 laps of h...

It's been a long and tiring two weeks, and now I have to go back to work. Regular readers will know that I spent the last two weeks at home in the UK visiting friends & family. It was a packed schedule, planned with military precision to maximise socialising and golfing opportunities. We landed at 5:30am and jumped straight into a rental car, headed for Scotland via the Lake District. We spent that first night with some friends at their farm/stables/guest house catching up on all the old skiing gossip from Soll. We even got AJ on a horse for her first assisted "ride". There are a few more pictures here of AJ on the horse. We left the farm mid morning and wended our way further northwards to visit my family who had never met the baby. We had checked into another guest house in Ayr, call By The Sea which we can thoroughly recommend. It has recently reopened with new ownership and a significant refit. The location is great, one block from the beach, and close to the t...

Been a busy few weeks what with the move and the upcoming trip and work kickin' my ass! However everything progresses. We moved in last weekend, in record time. The 24' truck was packed to the gunwales (or gunnels as we say in Scotland). We had a merry band of helpers, and I am eternally grateful to them for their efforts. We got the whole truck packed up by 11:30am, having only started around 9am, and we were at the new house and completely unpacked by 2pm. The unpacking will take several more weeks/months! On the weight side, as you can see above, progress continues in the right direction. I am now under 250lbs fully clothed, more than 30lbs down! The trip to the homeland is coming up soon. I will be back in the UK from the 8th in Scotland and the 15th in Epsom.

My progress continues! The last few weeks have been difficult, I guess because I lost focus, however this last week, I have regained that focus and coupled with working at the new house, painting, decorating, etc, I have put myself back on track. I really want to get as low as I can before I go to the UK in May, because for sure there will be lots of bad food, alcohol and poor general habits!

Yep, this weekend, AJ tried her first solid food, well "thicker than milk" food. I am not sure it really qualifies as solid if you could suck it through a straw! As you can see from the picture on the right, it was the messy affair you would expect, although the video shows that she did actually open her mouth voluntarily a few times This has been a funny month, not much going on one minute, then all hell breaking loose the next. Easter coming so early threw a lot of folks, and work seemed to be really quiet compared to previous Easters. We have secured the house, as i said earlier and will actually get the keys this Friday 28th. We don't move for another month, but this will give us time to clean, paint, etc before we actually have to move in, which is really excellent. And of course many other pictures , taken this month, of our impossibly cute girl!

After a final blast of cold and snow last week, another foot or so on Good Friday, it seems that the winter is finally over. We are getting ready to move house and also take a trip back home with AJ for her first time. The ice on the lake has mostly melted and I got some good pictures this past weekend, when we went to the new house for some measuring up. The winter in Chicagoland has been amongst the most severe in recent memory. In our little town of Libertyville, we had 37" of snow in February alone and a season total of 78", that's right 7.5 FEET! Of course as it all melts now and the spring storms come, there will be considerable flooding, but hopefully, some of the golf courses will open soon. For those of you reading this in the UK, the trip is planned for 7th-22nd May for me, and 7th May-4th June for Lorraine. I emailed everyone I had in my address book pretty much, but if I missed you then let me know and I will send you the trip itinerary Click here for the fin...

what to yell when a plane is coming in to land on the fairway. Last weekend, I was driving from an appointment along route 22 near our office and one of the local golf courses, I frequent in the summer. There were a number of police cars and some crime scene tape on the road bordering the course, and I could see some officers actually standing around on the course. It turns out that someone had chosen to land their small plane on the course, complete with skis and all, to ensure his son made it to his tennis lesson at the club across the street. The full incredible story is here and some more details here .

My calorie controlled diet continues to go well, and in fact I have now lost over 18lbs. My eventual target is still 50lbs, but I can already fit back into my 40 waist jeans, trousers and shorts. Hopefully when we move, I can get back to more regular exercise, beyond walking the dog occasionally.

Winter is still with us, and some more snow and cold coming this week. Last weekend, we went over to our new place to try out the walk down to town and the lake. It was a gorgeous day, and we made the lake in 40 minutes, which is about as long as it takes to walk to Libertyville town (for those who have been here). We signed the lease on the new place, and paid an initial deposit this weekend, with the move date set for 1st May at the latest. We took some excellent pictures, including the one above and this one, down by the lake. The current background shot was from there too. Click here for lots more.

We are on the move AGAIN!! When we first came to the US, we had grand plans to buy a nice house, settle in for the duration, then rent it out when we went home. That was before we really understood the market, rates, deposits, etc, and of course before we actually built a credit rating. Three years in, we are now in a strong position to buy a place from a credit standpoint, but we would still need to have a 20% deposit (or pay some sort of secondary insurance/loan) and the "lowest rate" ever deals are still running in the high 5-6% range. So the reality is that we can continue to rent for much cheaper than a mortgage/PMI would cost and get great places to stay, by trading up every few years. Hopefully this one will be our last one. It looks small from the front, but really it is a Tardis once inside. $1800 per month gets us this 4/5 bedroom, 3 bathroom, family room, living room, dining room and large fenced in yard with deck, house, with bigger rooms than we have today less t...