It's the Little Things

As many of you know, I started a new job in June.  Friday, I realized that I have managed to keep the same two pins I was given on my first day.  I thought that was noteworthy given my track record of keeping track of anything smaller than my bicycle.

Not so awesome:  my inability to park.  I've always been an horrific parker.  My Focus is so small, yet I can't park it evenly between the lines.  This befuddles me.  Baffling, really.  Every day I can look out the office window and see my handiwork.  It does bring a smile to my face, but it's also a reminder to me that I'm not nearly as cool as I think I am.

I slept at a Holiday Inn Express

 I kept thinking there ought to be a light right there....

 ....and so it was.

 It's a shame when a door ruins a really nice wood floor.

 It's also a shame when said door is 200 pounds or so.  And your alone.  But, I'm strong like bull.

 It's kind of a shame, too, when you don't want a door there.  A bigger shame when the doorway is not completely square, nor are the dimensions conventional.  But I had wood, screws, saws, hammers, drills and determination.

But someone else had the real skill and finished the job up nicely.

A Trip to Chicago

We took Hanna and Eli to Chicago for a fun weekend, sort of celebrating Hanna's transition to college.  The first things we did were quite tourist-ee, but who can resist this enormous Farris Wheel??

 Just so you get the idea of how big this thing is, that's Hanna, Deanna, and Eli standing at the bottom of the thing.

It was hot.  We went to the beach to check out Lake Michigan.  The water was chilly but really, really refreshing.  Lots of people, too.

 Boats love Chicago and Lake Michigan.  There were SO MANY boats!

 Chicago has it's version of the Lime bike.  It's called Divvy.  Meh.

After hundreds of miles of walking, we came here, super close to the venue where Lalapalooza was going on.  Ok, maybe it was like ten miles of walking. 

 Then, there was the bean.

 And we took our picture in the bean.

 Lots more tourist-ee things the next day on Michigan Avenue.

 A ton of these lighthouse displays on the curb.  If you love lighthouses, it was a great chance to see them decorated in so many different ways.

 The Nike store was pretty cool.

 The Underarmour store had this big shirt.

 We went up into some really, really tall building.  It took like three hours total.  The view was pretty spectacular, though.

 Chicago is a big city.

 I became fascinated with the building-top pools.

 And more pools.

 That old building in the center of the photo?  It was in Transformers "Dark of the Moon."  It's the building that Sentinel Prime placed the pillars on to bring ruin to Earth.  It's a lot smaller in real life, but I looked for this darn building the entire trip.

Me, standing in front of skate boards in the Nike store.  I've never ridden a skate board, but it's not a bad photo so let's go with it.