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July 15 -16, 2006 Kathy had a Ladies Day out at Church in the late morning and afternoon. They were gong Putt-Putt golfing, then lunch and a speaker. Andrew has been on a pancake kick and Kathy is tired of them so she said we could make them for lunch, which we did. I worked on a Dungeon Twister reference sheet that I am going to post on Board Game Geek, until Andrew got up. Andrew and I played 2 games of Dungeon Twister in the afternoon, he won both games. At 7pm we were going to Rockheads to play Formula De (see the game session report for July 16). Zac had dinner at Amanda’s parents house Saturday night and was then coming over to our house. Andrew and I got home at about Midnight and then Andrew, Zac and I played a game of Railroad Tycoon. |
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July 18, 2006 It is not much of secret anymore. Kathy had an interview at Carrol College a couple of weeks ago. Well, Monday they called and offered her the position, she would be in charge of 2 full time employees and about 30 part time employees. The Library Director at Carthage told her to talk to him before she accepted any offers. We are still debating what to do, as Zac gets his tuition paid while Kathy works at Carthage but the other offer is a promotion and a good offer. We will keep you informed. I have been working on the web site since Sunday and made several additions. I also finished a Reference Sheet for Dungeon Twister, which I submitted to Board Game Geek for posting. Andrew is still busy with summer school (Algebra), Lukas is busy working and Zac got a promotion at work to Usher 2 (projectionist) so we have all been busy. |
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July 21 - 22, 2006 Kathy and I left Andrew and Lukas at home so we cold go down to Paul’s Ordination in Decatur. We left about 1:30 and went down to Steve’s in Champaign and then road over to Decatur together. The service was in a shelter building at the Churches Retreat Camp outside of Decatur at 7 pm. We were going to sit outside but it kept getting darker and rain and wind seemed imminent so everybody moved under the Shelter. That was a good thing because a few minuets later the wind roared and the rain came down. The church was having other meetings that week so we had music and a speaker and then the Ordination ceremony. A VERY pleasant surprise for everybody (except Colette who knew) was that Myleah had come from Minneapolis to see her dads ordination. After the Ceremony there was a reception in the Retreat Center where they had punch and cookies and everybody could congratulate the new Ministers. Paul, Colette, Myleah & Colette’s Dad, Steve & Carol, Kathy & I and Paul’s pastor & his dad went to Ruby Tuesdays in Decatur for a late dinner afterwards. Paul, Steve and I put the hurt to the Salad bar that they had. Paul & Myleah were staying in Decatur that night. Paul had to get Myleah to Bloomington Airport the next morning for her flight back to MN that left at 6 am and then he had a meeting at the Retreat Center. Pictures of his ordination can be found here. Kathy & I stayed at Steves house and then the next day we went to the Showcase of Homes in Champaign. That was cool!! They had some really neat houses and everybody found neat things that they liked (or didn’t like) in the 7 homes. If we can go next year I am going to take the camera and take pictures of the things that I like. Steve grilled chicken and brats for us and then we came home, with an extra person. Our nephew Joel, Steve’s youngest son, came back with us. He is the same age as Andrew and will be with us for 8 days. Steve is going to pick him up when he comes up this way for work, in a week. |
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July 18 - 24, 2006 Friday we helped move Zac and Amanda to a new 1 bedroom apartment. It was HOT!! They have a lot more room in the new apartment, with bigger living room and bedroom. It is also cheaper then their part of the rent for the 2 bedroom that they were sharing with 2 other people. Next time we need to make sure that Zac has all of the boxes he needs so he can have everything boxed up. Kathy’s sister Ginger and her family arrived Friday night about 12:30 or 1am on Friday. I had to work on a side job wiring Kim’s new office all weekend and the air in the office did not work so I was soaked in the 90 to 100 degree heat. On Saturday Lukas, Andrew, Sam and Anna went to 6 Flags. Kathy, Dave, Ginger and Joel went to a BIG sub-division yard sale in Kenosha, while I worked. I was hoping to be done with the wiring project so I could go with everybody to the Renaissance Fair on Sunday, but that did not happen. I worked again in the heat while, everybody else enjoyed the Ren Fair entertainment in the heat. Joel spent the last part of the afternoon on a bench under a tree it was so hot. Monday, I worked my normal job in the morning and early afternoon and then we went to the Sprecher Brewery tour in the afternoon. I had to stop back by my side job in Milwaukee to fix a couple of things after the tour (the tour was cool). It took me longer then expected so Dave, Andrew, Sam, Lukas and I went out for dinner after we were done. Kathy, Ginger, Anna and Joel went out for dinner also. Tuesday, I had to work again (I did not take this week off like Kathy) and Kathy, Dave, Ginger & Anna went shopping. On Wednesday I worked early and then Dave, Ginger, Kathy & I took Joel down to the Greyhound bus station in Markham, where is was a 2 hour bus ride. If we dropped him off in Kenosha he would have had a 5 hour trip which included changing buses in Chicago along with a 1 hour layover. On the way back home we had lunch at CiCi’s Pizza, which is great. We first had it on our trip to Orlando FL in 2002. Then we stopped by the IKEA store to show Dave and Ginger what it was. |
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Kathy Andrew and I went down to Augusta for a family reunion on Sunday. As usual I was playing the role of entertainment director and brought several of my games. We ate in Rockford on the way down and between Rockford and Galesburg it was foggy. I was glad I was driving on Interstate instead of 2 lane highways. On the way we listened to George R. R. Martins “A Clash of Kings” book 2 of the Song of Ice and Fire. We got to Kathy’s folks about 12:30am. On Saturday morning the girls went to yard and then we joined them and went for Breakfast at Carthage and saw my Aunt Esther for a few minutes. They were leaving just as we were getting there. Saturday afternoon brought us some excitement as Andrew came running into the house saying Dave’s barn was on fire. We paused for just a moment to determine if he was joking but his white face and speaking while out of breath convinced us. We all jumped in our cars and went flying over to Dave’s house while Ernie called the fire department. When we got there the fire was out and a neighbor was spraying water on the area. Shortly there after the fire department came and poured on more water. I have some picture in the picture album of the reunion. It appears that the fire was caused by a capacitor that exploded in an old PC power supply. We played some games on Saturday and then on Sunday morning I went out to the State Park with Andrew, Issac, Sam and Rachel. Our purpose was to hold the shelter for lunch and play some more games. Lunch was great, there was lots of food. I brought a keg of Sprecher Root Beer, which was a hit. Out of 7 3/4 gallons I had about 1 1/2 gallons left. We stayed until about 4:30pm (we had to finish our last game) and then went back to Augusta and then headed for home. The trip back was uneventful (the best kind) and we listened to more of our booktape. Lukas had a softball game for a team from his work so he stayed home. Zac had to work so he could not make it either. |
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Well, it has been a while. Here is the latest news Kathy got back home last Friday afternoon. She went to a library conference up at Kalahari in the Wisconsin Dells. She left on Tuesday and got back on Friday. She was really roughing it, while she and another librarian from Carthage College were there. They got their room upgraded to a suite and Kathy talked the other person into letting her have the private room with the whirlpool tub so she could swim around in it. I have been playing games lately, as usual. Andrew has not been playing as much with me because he is mad at me because I won’t get a car other then my Geo for him to drive. I finally found out today why he does not like the Geo Metro. It was the predecessor to the Chevy Cavalier and he said that the Cavalier is a chick car. Well, that is news to me! Luke is working on his classes at Gateway and Zac is plugging away at his final year at Carthage. Zac was almost changed his major, when this semester started because he was going to have to take Latin for his Classical Archeology major. Everybody talked him into toughing it out and taking Latin (it is only for 1 semester). Lukas talks like he would like to go to Carthage yet, but he will have to work on his grades to make that happen. If he wants to do it bad enough, he can do it as I know he is smart enough he just needs to apply himself. I am about 40 games away from listing 500 played games on BoardGameGeek. I tore it up this last weekend. I played 2 games (Ticket to Ride, Poison) on Friday with Kathy, Andrew and Nick (one of Andrews friends). On Saturday Zac and I played at a new friends house in Kenosha (I met him on BoardGameGeek) and then we played at Rockheads in Kenosha at night. Zac had to go to dinner at Amanda’s parents between our afternoon and evening game session. Andrew did not come play with us, but I played 13 games with 9 different games. With Thanksgiving coming up I should be able to surpass 500 by the end of November. I got Zacs old room painted and I am finishing putting some bookcases together. It is going to be a Game / Sewing / Library / Guest room. We have taken some pictures of the progress and I will post some when it is done. I almost have Zacs GenCon report done and I will post some pictures with it. I also want to post some pictures from my birthday and maybe another game session report. Maybe I will get that done this week (knock on wood.) |
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(NOTE: I wrote this on December 18, 2006 but it was kind of rough. I cleaned it up and added a couple of thoughts before posting. Inntrepid - Jan 15, 2007) I wanted to post some thoughts on a little bit of sadness that I am feeling. If you check the Rec Room Cam you may notice a change (and probably a mess while I am making the change and cleaning up). Yep, I took down 2 of the computer stations. Why does this make me a little sad? Well, it signifies an official end to an era. The era had already ended but I was hanging on to it even though it had run its course. You are probably wondering what era? It is the era of “The Computer Room” at our house. We may still have our LAN parties and we will spread out computers around the house and we will have a good time but it won’t be the same. I am saddened because it is not the LAN parties but the camaraderie with my boys, as we all played on the computers and played games together. The Computer Room has been a fixture for over 10 years, it started back in the trailer with 2 computers and a serial connection between them. It developed into a real network with a coax cable and then a CAT5 network and 2 more computers. We out grew the small room and moved it into the bigger back room in the trailer. At its most impressive, probably 2004 or 2005, we had enough computing power to run a small business and we were taking full advantage of the broadband cable connection we had. Zac, Lukas, Andrew and I played a lot of games together, while we were all in “The Computer Room”. We did not always agree and have a good time. When you put several aggressive players together, you are going to have some disagreements and the accusations of cheating. We made screens so you could not easily look at the players monitor next to you, to help prevent disagreements. The good times however out numbered the arguments though and these are the times I am going to miss. I like the games where we played as a team and worked together. Games like Diablo, Half-Life, Quake, Team Fortress, Diablo 2, Counter Strike, Warcraft and most recently Battlefield 2. You always knew when things were not going well for Zac (he could hold his own with a sailor). Lukas and his cat like reflexes, that I could not match. He still uses them but on his online X-Box games now. Andrew doing his own thing sometimes and causing a verbal reaction from Zac. Andrew remembers playing Warcraft before he went to daycare and I went to work. It may sound like we did not always get along and we didn’t but I remember the good times, when we all worked together or even played against each other and had AMAZING and EXCITING times. The computer room is now only running at about 50% with Andrew and I being the only ones with computers left in “The Computer Room”. Zac is living in his own apartment and Lukas plays X-box online and has his computer in his room for music. I guess I have known that the era of “The Computer Room” has been over for more then a year but if I took down the stations I woud be confirming an end of an era. Well, I have taken down 2 of the stations I am acknowledging that: Zac is moving on with his own life with Amanda and soon to be life after college. Lukas is also doing his own thing: X-Box games, girl friends, a job and education after high school. Andrew is growing up and has his own agenda: friends, school and the trying to get as much independence as a parent allows a teenager with a new drivers license. I am not sure if the 4 of us will ever be playing on computers in the same room again and this is something that has played such a central part in our lives for the past 10 years. This is why is saddens me to take down the computer stations as it signifies the official end of “The Computer Room” era and the fun and camaraderie that we had with it. I am sure that we will have fun times together in the future but, they won’t be in “The Computer Room”. |
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last updated 1-15-2007 |
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