Home, for a bit of miscellaney

As you may have surmised, I'm back home from Phoenix safely. No problems with the flight, nothing interesting to say about the last few days there other than that they were pretty busy.

I still need to write up a couple things about my last weekend in Phoenix, alluded to in a comment back to Matt. But I'll get there. This is a quicky update, with several miscellaneous items.

Since I got home, I've been to two Cubs games (won one, lost one). Saturday I sat with Ellen, a little lower in the lower deck than we usually do and on the other side of the field. Very nice seats. We had lunch in the stadium club with Bob, Craig Cunard and his family, and Don Brothers and his friend Blake. So, out of the nine folks there we had five Missouri Valley High School graduates -- Ellen ('75), me ('76), Bob ('77), and Craig and Don (both '78). Mini sort-of reunion. :-) It was hot, but we had a good breeze and really weren't uncomfotable at all. We met everyone back in the club for dessert toward the end of the game.

Monday night I went with Bob to the game and sat in our regular seats. The game was a blow-out though and we left after the 7th inning with the Cubs behind 10-4, with all those Diamondback runs scoring on six home runs (including one grand slam). Ugg. But, leaving early spared us from seeing the additional five runs that the Diamondbacks scored in the 8th inning! Final: 15-4.

Friday is the Chicago Comicon/Wizard World Chicago, and Tjarkseque. But Tjarkseque is going to be very sparsely attended this year -- maybe only us and Chris and BJ. I haven't heard from anyone else yet, and it sounds like not many people are coming to the con -- probably hurt by it being only two weeks after the San Diego con.

Next week is Gencon -- so probably no updates starting Tuesday through at least Sunday. I might sneek one in, if I even bother bringing my laptop.

Ellen has updated her blog with pictures of our landscaping work from earlier in the summer. But now I need to take new pictures since she's done a lot more work since those were taken.

And, I see that Google has updated the picture of our house in Google Maps. From that link, you should be able to tell our house as the one in the center of the picture and with the white concrete driveway (where all others around are asphalt). So, now the picture shows the new driveway and patio (now both three years old). I wonder when the picture was taken -- possibly this spring or maybe the one before. The clues: besides the presence of the patio it also has the brickwork landscaping (you can see it around the back bay windows, and a bit on the front corner) that was done two years ago. The locust trees are bare, and the patio table is still wrapped up for winter and tucked next to the house. And it looks like Matt's car is parked in front on the street. And, if I pan over to the west, the outlet mall is now present and open. Hmm, my guess is that the picture is from the spring before last, before Ryan graduated (and so he was driving the wagon that Matt now is), though it may have been this year during Matt's spring break.

Woo hoo, Google detective work!