DadStock 2007

Julie and I had blood tests this morning because we're applying to a new company for life insurance. Then I got the front yard mowed. Sometime while I was gone someone mowed the back yard. I'm guessing it was Julie, but I'm not sure. --Update, yes it was Julie. Wasn't that nice? :-)

After that I went to another SAHD's house today for DadStock 2007. It started as a SAHD's event for the Dad's to get together and have some beer and just be away from the "job" for a while. It ballooned into a national event that brought people from as far away as Massachusetts, New Jersey, Indiana, Quad-Cities area, Wisconsin and maybe a few others plus around here too. There were 13 of us all together I think.

I actually picked up one of the Dads from the group at the train station here in Grayslake as he had stayed in the city/downtown last night with a friend from back home in South Africa where he's originally from. He lives in Boston now with his American wife that he met in London and then moved here to the States with her. This is interesting because South Africa borders...Zimbabwe! His Mum is from Zimbabwe and he still has a lot of family there. So we talked about the situation there and whether my friends would be safe there. He said that considering the ex-pat network they were going to be associated with that they should be just fine. But that the country itself is headed for some type of conclusion because it's getting more and more heated and has to end at some point. By the way, he's 6'7" and I felt so short next to him! Really nice guy, I'm glad I got to meet him.

But really all the guys I met were really nice. The guy from Wisconsin "woodchuck" was really cool too. He brought his chain saw with and did a demonstration for everyone for how he mills trees into board stock which he can use to build things or to sell as finished lumber. He also gave us instructions for how to sharpen your chain saw blades and he even sharpened a neighbor's blades for him.

A guy that came from the Indianapolis area brought some home-brewed beer. It was really good! Maybe an idea for something to try in the future... The beer I brought is from Goose Island Beer Co and is called 312. It's really good! It just might be my new favorite.

I won't go into detail about each person, but all the guys were really nice and it was fun spending the day with them.

After I left there I headed over to my BIL's house to help him with his satellite dish. He was trying to add a grounding block to the lines coming in from the dish. Turns out the cable trimmer he had wasn't adjusted right so the wires weren't contacting the connector. So it was an easy fix.

Then it was late so I just came home and watched a little TV before heading to bed.

NYC Taxis

Here is why I think I don't have my new car yet:

Another Week

This week just flew by for some reason. I guess when you're busy those kinds of things happen. Julie actually took a half day at work today but wasn't home much sooner than normal because she went shopping on her way home. Unfortunately she wasn't too successful as she only came home with a new swimming suit and she's been wanting work clothes.

Grace slept until 9:15 this morning so we obviously didn't do much of anything this morning. We went to blockbuster today to get our free rentals for returning our Blockbuster Total Access rentals. After that we had some lunch at McDonalds. Can you believe they actually told me they don't have double-cheeseburger meals anymore? You have to order everything separately. Anyway, then we ran over to my Aunt's work and dropped off our carpet cleaner. They are having company over the weekend and wanted to clean their carpets prior to the party. After that we ran to Target to get a few things including dinner for today. I just ended up getting some sirloin steaks to grill up and some mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.

I grilled the steak before heading over to the in-laws. It turned out pretty good, but the juice from the steak leaked in the car. I'll have to clean that up tomorrow. I've got so many things to do this weekend it's just crazy. I need to mow the lawn, paint some exterior trim pieces and replace them, pull weeds (just never ends), prime the shelves for the bookcases I made here in the office and another shelf I want to hang up in the dining room. Then there's cleaning (also never ending) and just general getting rid of junk. We plain have too much of it or I have too much. Julie doesn't save much, I'm the saver and boy do I do my part. I've also got so many unfinished projects. I guess I should make a list and start working on completing a few of them. Lists help me a lot. If it's not on a list I generally just forget about it.

I'm going to need to water the lawn on Sunday I guess. We have watering restrictions and can only water on odd days since our house number is an odd number. The other day I said that we got about a quarter inch of rain but we actually got a half an inch. That's not enough so I'll need to water since it isn't supposed to rain now for another week.

I've been getting good responses to my email campaign against Libertyville Lincoln Mercury. Thanks to everyone that has helped already. Please forward to anyone you know!

What a difference a day makes

It's been hot and so humid here for some time now it was a real shock today to go outside. I forgot what nice weather was like - it actually felt cold to me and that's scary because this is my ideal temperature. The high today was 74° and a nice cool breeze. I should have changed from shorts to jeans, that would have helped. But that's just crazy talk for this time of year.

After Julie left for work today Rosco (our dog) decided it was time to get up. I usually sleep until Grace wakes up but not today as he had to go out. So I was up at 6:20 this morning and it was nice to relax and read before Grace got up, but I'm really tired! I'm not used to getting up early any more. Grace got up around 8:00 and she didn't want breakfast until 10:00 or so I think. But she did eat a good breakfast when we finally had it and then "A" came over. Julie's sister called and wanted to have lunch with us today so we all went to Panera Bread for lunch. There was a little "excitement" there as we were eating the police came and ticketed a car that was parked in a handicapped spot without a placard in the window or a plate. It was interesting to watch. There were two squad cars one parked behind the "offending" vehicle and another was writing the ticket out. Once they were done the one that was parked behind took a picture of the back of the car aiming at what looked like the license plate.

We tried to stick around long enough to see who's car it was, but Grace was getting tired of waiting so we left. Interestingly most of the people that were in the restaurant while we were eating had left so who knows who's car it was. They might not have even been there. After that we ran over to Office Depot and got some self-stick fasteners for file folders. I couldn't believe that the smallest package you could buy them in was 100 pieces. I'll have those for the rest of my life. Also picked up an optical mouse for my experimental "server" for only $5. And I grabbed the smallest package they had of DVD-RW's so I could experiment with them in my DVD recorder. Not sure how well those really work.

After that we came back home and Grace wanted to play outside but like I said it actually felt cold with the wind, so "A" wasn't too keen on the whole idea. After Julie came home I convinced her to go out to eat for dinner at Culvers. One of her other sisters called and mentioned that portions of their proceeds today were going to the Relay for Life/American Cancer Society. So we were just doing our part and helping out. We actually met Julie's sister and her family there, and our neighbors from across the street met us there later for dessert.

We were going to watch the movie "Citizen Kane" tonight as it's due at Blockbuster tomorrow but Grace wasn't cooperating too well to get in bed easily for Julie tonight, so we didn't really have time. Not sure what I should do; just be late since there aren't any "late fees" any more or just take it back. We can always rent it again.

So as you can see from my other post today I haven't heard anything from Libertyville Lincoln Mercury or Lisa Madigan's office about our complaint and I'm tired of waiting. I did finally hear from our credit card company yesterday or the day before that they are still reviewing the case and haven't made any determinations. I called the representative from Lisa Madigan's office again today and her voice mail again said she was out of the office. Maybe I should leave a message every time I call, but I don't want to be a pest they are helping me after all; at least I think they are.

I talked to the Ford store where we ordered our Escape from and our salesperson said that she thinks she knows why our order is taking so long. Apparently taxi companies in New York are using the Escape Hybrids and they've ordered a boatload of them. So of course these taxi companies take precedence over the "average consumer." Which really sucks because we really wanted to take this new car on vacation because it'll have a navigation system and it gets great fuel mileage (not as good on the highway as the city, but still better than any other car we've owned recently.) She said to pretty much plan on taking Julie's car to Colorado and if this one is in before we leave it will be a pleasant surprise. So that's what I'm going to do and that is usually my philosophy, but we've just been waiting so long for this darn car that I'm tired of waiting.

I asked if there was a way I could pick up the car from the factory and avoid the whole delivery time frame after the car has been built. She said absolutely not. But I know I've read somewhere before that some customers have done that. I'm thinking there is a way around that. Maybe it's more of a dealership policy that they want to take physical possession of the car so they can sell it, like they wouldn't trust me with it until I've paid for it or something; who knows. Obviously I'd be willing to do all the paperwork before I actually took possession.

On a lighter note, a blog reader suggested I look into myfantasyleague.com as an option for our Fantasy Football league this year. We have looked into that site in previous years when we were considering changing, but we weren't impressed at that time. I have to say after creating our league today on their site I'm very impressed with the number of customization options available. Thanks for telling me to check them out again. I'll bring it to every one else's attention in our league and see which one they prefer.

Libertyville Lincoln Mercury Email Campaign

Please help me send a message to Libertyville Lincoln Mercury. Just copy the text below and paste it into an email to the owner of the dealership Dan Marks. His email address is llmdan@aol.com - feel free to change the text anyway you like just make sure you are still mentioning my name in the email. Please send this to everyone you know so that I can get as many messages to him as I can so that he knows the power of the internet and how it can affect his business.

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I have recently been made aware of how a friend of mine, Mr. Steve Serres, was treated at your dealership Libertyville Lincoln Mercury Mr. Marks. I wanted to let you know that I am appalled at how my friend was treated and unless you return the $1,500 to him I plan to never do business with your dealership. Furthermore, I will make sure all of my family members, co-workers and friends are made aware of how you treated Mr. Serres and recommend that they never do business with you either. Please keep track of how many of these emails you receive and multiply it by how many family members, co-workers and friends you think each person might have. When you add all those numbers up, this will be how many customers at a minimum that will never do business with you; these are lost customers and lost revenue. And the more people that know the more your dealerships image will be tarnished. I look forward to hearing from Mr. Serres that his money has been returned.

Preliminary Painting

Grace slept in again today. I wanted to run and get the birthday present for the party tonight after we ate breakfast but the only thing on her mind this morning was "A" and we had to wait for her to get here before we could do anything else. Her friend from down the street called and asked if Grace wanted to go to the park and I mentioned "A" and so she said she'd call after I knew if "A" would want to do that or not.

So "A" comes over and we all went to McDonalds for lunch and then they went to Grace's friends house as she was taking them to the park. So I had a little time to get a few things done before picking them back up. I ran to Wal-Mart and got the gift we needed for party later and a few other things for Grace. Then came home and started painting the wallpaper samples we're going to use on the ceiling in the family room. They look pretty cool. After Grace was in bed I stuck one of the samples to the ceiling and we both like it. I think it'll be a focal point and really cool. I just hope it's easier to paint than it was with the little sample bottles of paint that Benjamin Moore sells. But considering that it's a ceiling, I don't think easy will describe anything to do with it's installation or painting.

So then it was time to go and pick up Grace and "A" so we could make it to the party on time. Her friend from down the street wasn't so happy that she was leaving; She wanted to play longer. So Grace and "A" came back here and "A" helped Grace get ready for the party. Then I had her sign the card and we were actually ready to go 10 minutes early! WOW! So Grace and "A" played a quick game of checkers and then Grace and I left to go to the birthday party.

Grace had a wonderful time; a lot of her friends were there and they got to play for at least 2 of the 2 1/2 hours we were there. Julie showed up too; I wasn't sure she was coming because she had called earlier in the day and said she wasn't feeling well and that she would probably just go home. But she stopped and got to spend time with everyone; that was a nice surprise. On the way home we passed this house where all these people were outside holding signs that said "Round Lake Police broke into my house and killed my dog." I'm thinking, Wow that's crazy, how could that happen. So when I got home I asked my neighbor if he knew anything about it. He did - apparently it was a drug bust and when they broke in to arrest everyone their dog started attacking the police so they shot the dog. There's always more to the story isn't there...

It's still warm and very humid. The cool front that came through this afternoon and dropped .27 in. of rain in about 15 minutes including a little hail. But it didn't cool it off too much, plus the humidity didn't go away at all. The weather man says tomorrow will be much better. I sure hope so as it feels like an oven outside with the humidity.

The new gas station just a few blocks from our house opened on schedule today. It'll be nice to have a gas station that close. It's even closer than the Walgreens; that should tell you something seeing as how there are Walgreens on most every corner. The only bad thing is that it's location probably makes it be in Round Lake Park and not Hainesville so the tax revenue won't benefit our town I don't think.

I forgot to mention that I talked to DirecTV yesterday about the issue with the remote control where it's controlling both the High Definition tuner and the new DVR tuner. Yea, that's what its supposed to do and there isn't anything I can do. The two boxes weren't meant to be used right next to each other and that's just how it is. Nice. Then we get a "courtesy" call from them today asking if we're happy with our installation. Yea - couldn't be better.

It's Hot - and did I mention Humid?

Today was gymnastics and of course Grace wanted to sleep in. I woke her up and we made it to gymnastics only a few minutes late. While she was there I ran to the Super Wal-Mart in Antioch to look for a birthday present for a friend of Grace's for her birthday party tomorrow. I didn't find that gift there, but I found something we wanted to get Grace for our trip to Colorado. We got her a Leapfrog Leapster; it'll give her something to do in the car on our trip. Plus if it's something new it'll take her at least 10 minutes to figure out how to use it.

So then I ran to the post office to mail a package to my Mom and came back to get Grace. We had to take the Edge back to the Ford store today and I got my cursory Taurus. It's not pretty, but it's free and it gets us places. Can't complain too loudly. After that we went to pick up the wallpaper for the lower portion of the walls down in the family room. Also we went to Best Buy to get the gift for her friend. Actually what we got will end up being Grace's birthday present; so we'll have to get something else tomorrow for her friend.

Funny thing actually, her friends Dad called tonight to see if we've heard anything about the whole issue with Libertyville Lincoln Mercury. I've been worried about that myselth (the spelling is for Ella) so I called again today to Lisa Madigan's office in Chicago and the message again said they were out of the office. I then called her office down in Springfield and they said that the office in Chicago is where the file is and they couldn't provide any more information. So I guess I'll just have to keep calling or wait for her to call me back since I left a message yesterday.

After that we just took it easy; Grace's friend from across the street came over for a while and then they both went across the street for a while to swim in the little pool they have. Then after Julie made it home we had dinner and I ran out to the Hainesville Village Board Meeting. Good thing I wasn't late as the mayor started 2 minutes early. The big discussion tonight was about the budget. Basically it will be unchanged from last year, with a few exceptions of course. There will be a commercial development at the entrance to our subdivision on Rte. 120. I wondered because a week or so ago they surveyed and marked it so it seemed logical. They talked about the bike path that they are going to put on Hainesville Road from Washington Street down to Rte. 120. Apparently the portion of the path that will go from Washington Street down to the old "Softball City" location will be started in the fall and the portion south of there won't be started until next year.

HainesvilleFest '07 is sounding exciting as there seems to be more activities planned for this year but they need more volunteers. Also August 7th is National Night Out - more info to come later. Apparently IDOT is publishing results of a field test on July 5th and 12th with bidding beginning on July 26th and tentative approval by the board on August 21st (I'm guessing it's repaving.) Also there was a wetlands meeting last Wednesday with little attendance and another is scheduled for Thursday at 7 pm. Trustee Walkington is hoping for more attendance. Personally I had no idea.

By the way, the high here today was 89° with 95% humidity and the dew point is all the way up at 70°.

DirecTV Version 2.0

Grace slept in today again and so we didn't go out today like I thought we might. I was considering going on a bike ride, but we ended up not having time anyway. Right after breakfast the DirecTV installer called and asked if he could come early. I said no problem and he showed up before lunch.

We got our new receiver (DVR Plus Model R15) and to some extent I'm not all that disappointed, but it's not as good overall as the old receiver. Tivo really is the best in my opinion. It's called a dual-tuner receiver and indeed you can record two things at once, but you can't switch between the two shows like you could on the old receiver (Hughes model DVR80.) So unless you're recording at least one thing you can't watch two shows. That's irritating! I read online that allegedly they plan to have a software upgrade in the future that will change this, but until or even IF that happens we're stuck without it. One good thing is that you can rewind for 90 minutes instead of only 30 minutes. But like I just said that's only for one show, you don't have two buffers for the two tuners, only one.

Another irritation is that the remote works on the same frequency as the High-Definition receiver and so whenever I turn it off or on or change a channel, etc. it does the same thing on both receivers. I'm certain there is a way around this, but I haven't figured this out yet and the instructions don't tell you anything.

I called the office of Lisa Madigan - the Illinois Attorney General - today to find out the status of our complaint with Libertyville Lincoln Mercury but the person handling it was out. Hopefully they will call back tomorrow. I also called the Ford store today and they need their Edge back, so I'll be dropping it off tomorrow after gymnastics; and yes, I'm getting a Taurus.

On the fun side, a friend of mine called me today and we talked Fantasy Football! I'm so ready for football to start. Bears training camp starts July 27. Unfortunately we'll be in Colorado at that time. But maybe I can convince Julie to stop there on the way home. We'll be practically driving right by it! Anyway, my friend and I were talking about getting things started for this year and possibly using a different server this year to host our league. We've used RTSports for the last two or three years I think and it's not all that special. I think we're going to revert to a site we've used in the past called fanstar. I think my Dad is going to join the league this year, but we still will need at least one more franchise owner.

Sunday

We all got up a little late today but still made it to church, albeit a few minutes late. After that we ran to the 7-11 so Julie could see the US99 people; she won a CD from them. We came home and I mowed the grass. I was finally able to trim the yard as I purchased a new weed trimmer attachment for my weed trimmer. It now works and the yard looks much better for it.

I'm slowly going through all the junk on my desk and am putting it where it belongs or I'm throwing it out. It's not easy; my desk is a disaster area. Like my uncle would say, pull the front-loader around and fill up the dumpster. Unfortunately most of the stuff here is important so I can't just throw it away.

I made a to-do list of things for us to complete in the family room today and it's quite long. Not sure how long this will take or how much money it'll cost, but the end should justify the means. Speaking of means, DirecTV is coming tomorrow to give us our "free" receiver. I hope it's not as bad as I'm thinking it might be. I forgot to mention that the dealership wants the Edge back. So I'll need to give that back soon and I'll be getting a Taurus - oh yea. I won't really miss the edge; it's not the right car for us - especially with only 16-17 mpg around town. Julie's car gets much better mileage and our new car should get good mileage too. Julie's car - a 2005 Mercury Montego - was getting 34 mpg on the expressway yesterday as long as we didn't go over 60. Once we went over 60 it went down to 28 mpg; even up to 75 mph.

Home Theater

Today was my great-aunt's birthday party up in Milwaukee. It was really fun, the food was great and Grace had a wonderful time too. The strawberry shortcake was to-die-for. As I mentioned yesterday, we were going to stop on the way home at different furniture stores to look for new furniture for the family room. It looks like our first stop was our best stop. They had exactly what we were looking for and for a pretty reasonable price. We can't afford to buy all of it right now, but at least we know what we want and where to get it. I spent some time looking online tonight to see if I could find it cheaper. I did find it cheaper, but by the time you factor in shipping and tax, that first store is really hard to beat. Plus if we wait a few weeks, they are having a good sale where we could save a pretty good amount too. Just maybe they'll have special financing where we won't really have to pay for it for a year or two with no interest.

What I did do online tonight was order a sample of the leather so we can take that and use it to help us determine the wall colors for the family room. That's what we REALLY want to do. As I mentioned yesterday, we already know the ceiling colors as long as we like what we've selected after I paint the sample. And I mentioned already that we know the fabric for the drapes and for the valences and I didn't mention that we've already selected the carpeting we want as well. So one of the few remaining things is the wall color which is how we started this whole mess out anyway. Funny how it works out that you want a new wall color and end up changing the entire room. That is what we wanted to do, it's just interesting how the order of all the selections has worked out so that the wall color is one of the last things we're determining. Now if I could only convince Julie that we need that new plasma TV...

The other thing we were reminded of today was lighting--OK, Julie asked me. We don't really have any lighting in the family room except for a couple of lamps and ideally I wanted to put in recessed lighting. I think now is the time to get that estimate and see if it's worth doing it before we start painting everything. It would really stink to get everything done and realize we can't see and have to tear it all up to put in lighting.

The Ford dealer called today and said that our new car was finally "Submitted to Plant" which means they will be building it soon! Yea! Here are the various stages of status as they build a new car at an assembly plant.

1. Clean and Unscheduled
2. Submitted to Plant
3. Scheduled
4. Locked In (no changes to order allowed)
5. Bucked (vehicle is on assembly line and production has begun)
6. Produced
7. Released from Plant
8. Released to Convoy

Ours was "Clean and Unscheduled" for seven weeks. Supposedly now it will be another 4-5 weeks before it's delivered to the dealer. I hope not more than 4 weeks because that's when we leave for Colorado and we're planning to take this car on the trip!

TGIF

After a long and crazy week, it's finally Friday. Grace and I didn't go anywhere today. We hung out at the house and tried to take it easy.

We still haven't heard anything about our new car or about getting our money back for the car we didn't buy. We have decided on a wallpaper to use on the lower portion of the walls in our family room. I placed the order for it yesterday. We think we have also found a wallpaper to use on the ceiling to make it look like a tin ceiling. I got some samples and some sample paint to try it out so we can see if we actually like it or not. Today we ordered a new shade for Grace's room as the one she has is broken and we can't open it anymore. That should be in in about a week. We've selected the fabric we want to use for the drapes in the family room too. We just need to order the fabric and have someone make them for us. We can also order the fabric for the valences now and I can make those.

We're going to a birthday party tomorrow for my step-Mom's Aunt who is turning 80. On the way home from there we're stopping at some furniture stores to look at theater seating to put into our family room. We want the seating where every chair is a recliner and every chair has it's own cup-holder. I'm planning to build a step-up or platform for some additional seating behind the regular row of seating like we have now. So that will give us more seating and it should look nice too. We want leather which we have never wanted before but now we think it's the way to go for not only durability, but for looks and comfort too.

DirecTV...Morons?

Well today was Thursday and our only real plan was a play date with a friend of Grace's. We ended up canceling that because she was playing with some other friends and it would have been a huge struggle to get her away from all of those friends and over to her other friends house. So we'll have to do that another day.

Since we didn't have any other plans and nothing else came up we just hung out at the house today and played with her friend from across the street. "A" came over after lunch and everyone seemed to have a great day playing and whatnot today.

I was supposed to have a "Dad's Night Out" tonight, but as it turns out the only person that was going besides me couldn't go. So I just invited the neighbor across the street over for dinner at our house. We had some excellent burgers on the grill that I think I got from Oberweis Dairy. I would double check but our internet is out right now for some reason - probably weather related. We're getting some pretty good storms right now.

So anyway, these burgers are completely free of antibiotics, pesticides, etc. and the beef was vegetarian fed, etc. And they were very good! We'll have to get some more...as long as I can remember where we got them.

I never did get the lawn mowed today. I just don't feel well enough yet so I'll have to do it after the rains are over and the grass dries out again which should be in a couple of days - probably Sunday. So after dinner I ran to the library and checked out a book that they bought for me. I had asked for them to borrow it through inter-library loan and they said they couldn't get it and that she was going to put a request in to have it ordered but that was no guarantee that it would actually get ordered. Low-and-behold I got an email today that it was in. So that was exciting. It's called "Beginning ASP.net 2.0 in C# 2005" and it's a big book. I'm looking forward to reading it! Unfortunately the library closes at 9pm or I would have stayed there longer and relaxed as a break was welcome today. Our house seems to be the "community" home more and more lately.

So then I ran to Blockbuster and the post office and came home. Julie was surprised to see me back so soon, but I didn't feel like staying out too late as I need to get to bed and get more rest so I can feel better. So Julie turns on the TV and low-and-behold (there's that word again) the DirecTV-Tivo box doesn't work. So I call DirecTV and I'm on the phone with them for 30 minutes fixing the problem. Turns out that when we added the two new boxes yesterday, they deactivated this box. And I don't mean in such a way that they just turn it back on, allegedly it can never be used again. Which stinks because now we can't even sell it. They don't make the Tivo boxes for DirecTV any more. The only way to get Tivo now is with a Tivo box. So they tried to offer us $10 off per month for the next year. I said that's great but how are we going to record shows? So after a little finagling she was able to provide me with a new dual tuner DVR (not Tivo mind you) for free on Monday afternoon. So we'll be without Tivo for 4-5 days and I'll have to burn all the shows off of the Tivo to DVD (that I actually want to keep) and then we'll have to re-setup all the shows we want to record in the new one. The only good thing about this is that the new DVR has 200 hours of record time and our old one only had 70. So that will be nice, but it won't be Tivo which we love. I asked about a hi-definition DVR and she said that would cost me $300. Julie said no; But actually, that's a pretty good price. Especially considering it's not a lease, they would actually sell it to me which they don't really do any more. All their new equipment is by lease only on their website.

So it all turned out OK in the end, but we are without Tivo for a few days (which really stinks) and we won't have Tivo on the new one; it will be DirecTV's proprietary PVR software. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a horrible mistake.

sickness

Julie stayed home sick today, but really all three of us were sick. I went to the doctor because apparently I have a canker sore on my tongue. It was so big and it hurt so much I didn't know what it was. The doctor told me to get more sleep. Should have seen that coming.

Today was Grace's first day of her new gymnastics class. Wow are these kids advanced! Grace did really well though and she even made it through the whole two hours with no problem. Julie ended up coming for a little while just to watch because she really never gets to see her do any of this stuff. So she drug herself out of bed and drove on up to Antioch. And then she went right back home and back to bed I think. Grace and I went to get gas up in Wisconsin; her gymnastics place is only 1.2 miles from the state line and over the line it's only $2.99. So that's a no brainer! Then we went to get her some flip-flops or crocs; it was up to her. And all she's been talking about is flip-flops, but the only flip-flops they had at the place we went was croc flip-flops, and she didn't like them so she ended up with crocs which is what I would have rather she bought anyway.

Then we came home too and we all had lunch and soon after that is when I went to the doctor. Then after dinner a financial adviser came over to go over our current investment portfolio and he told us that basically we are on track to retire a little early and he says we should be able to buy a vacation/second/retirement home in about 10 years. We'll see! It sounds a little scary to us!

Then since we were all tired and sickly we were all getting ready for bed. But Grace had gone to play at "A"'s house so Julie went to go get her, but then I came out too and was talking to her dad. He was telling us about an accident he had at work. He basically got electrocuted, but it wasn't your standard 110 or even 220, it was more than that. He's alright, but apparently he's going to take a few days off as his work wants him too I think. So we will get some much needed rest tonight and hopefully be better tomorrow.

Day after Fathers Day

What a difference a day makes. Fathers Day is definitely over...any leeway I may have received yesterday has been withdrawn today; tempers appear to be short. That's all I'll say.

I forgot to mention yesterday that the articles did print in both papers over the weekend. Grace and I made the front page of the Daily Herald; a cute picture of us kissing before taking her to VBS. This article was really nice! It seemed more well developed, better written and just a much better article than the one in the News-Sun. No offense to the News-Sun, I just liked the writing the author of the Daily Herald article did better. Now I know why we subscribe!

The video is up on the News-Sun website now and it's really good. Julie's giving me a hard time about what I say, but it's a nice video.

So this morning we waited for "A" to come over, but she didn't so I called her Dad and he reminded us that she has summer school in the mornings. So that's why she wasn't here first thing this morning. I guess that'll be for the next 6 weeks. After she did come home we went out to eat lunch because Grace didn't want to leave the house in the morning to go to the grocery store. Then we stopped to pick up some pictures we had printed and came back home. Grace and "A" played for the rest of the afternoon and her friend from across the street came over to play later.

That's about it for today, nothing exciting. Her friend from across the street's Mom made it home safely yesterday from her home country where she had been last week for work and for a short vacation also. Tomorrow will be the test for both Grace and I as we have to be at gymnastics by 8:00am in Antioch. At least it rained a little today and hopefully that cold front they've been promising is whats coming through because I'm ready for cooler weather!

Fathers Day

Today was Fathers Day and we make the rounds to see my Dad and Julie's Dad every year. Julie made us cinnamon rolls for breakfast--mmmm, so good! Then we went to church, haven't been there in so long - ha, ha! After that we came back home to finish a few things up; I'm trying to finish recording the recital to DVD for everyone that needs a copy. I wanted to finish up one copy of each show for Julie's Dad since he wasn't well enough to go to the recital this year. So after I was done with that we ran over there.

While we were there I helped my BIL set up his DirecTV boxes that he ordered over eBay. We ended up having to order some new access cards for each of his boxes because the ones that came with them were still registered to the previous owner. I don't know, I guess it makes sense but at the same time it doesn't because you just change it to be registered to my BIL. But I know they deal with fraud every day with people trying to steal their service without paying for it and so they have these procedures in place to stop or at least limit that as much as possible. Neither of us was upset, it just seems like a little too much - too many hoops.

So we got that done except it obviously doesn't work yet as we have to wait for the new access cards to come in the mail. We then were into dinner time and stayed for dinner (darn, how could that have happened :->). It was really good; MIL made a standing rib roast with nice fluffy mashed potatoes and really tasty gravy, mmmmmm! I sure ate good on Fathers Day!

After that we headed over to my Dad's house and my sister and BIL were there. So that was really nice for us all to be together for a few hours. We don't get to see each other as often as we should, especially for how close we live to each other. We were watching a show on the Discovery Channel called "Man vs. Wild" and the host was in the everglades and was showing you how to survive and to find your way out. It was pretty engaging and very interesting. After that we came home and got Grace to bed. I was then continuing to work on the recital videos and to try and get new music onto Julie's MP3 player. She doesn't have an iPod and for some reason, it doesn't ever seem to work as easily as my iPod does as far as transferring music onto it. But I'm pretty sure I uninstalled the application that has been causing the problem and hopefully this won't happen any more. What's crazy is I used to love this application - Musicmatch Jukebox; It's just become too buggy.

Pre-Fathers Day

It's Fathers Day weekend if you will and I kind of took the day off. I'll have to make up for it tomorrow. It's just so darn hot outside; 94° with 77% humidity. It's rough to be outside in that weather. I did get up and get Julie's oil changed today, but even that I couldn't get right. Here I assumed (think of the definition of assume) I had everything I needed to change her oil and actually I had none. I had to go to Wal-Mart and get the oil filter and go to Pep Boys (Pimp Girls is what I like to call it) and get some oil. So after I wasted all that time the temperature was already up to 86° but at least the car was still in the shade. So I got her oil changed and didn't spill a drop on our newly sealed driveway. Took a test drive and all seems fine; no leaks upon return either.

So after that I just kind of did a small cleaning of the garage; eg: I threw a few things out that I didn't need. I emptied the old oil drain pan out into my recycling jug to take to the oil recycling place, put all the old oil filters on wire mesh to drain the oil out of them so I can throw them away. They have to drain for 24 hours before you can throw them out in the garbage. So tomorrow I can throw all of them away and be rid of more garbage from the garage. Interesting that garbage and garage only differ by one letter... So you can also gather from all of this that I bought a new oil drain pan today and used that with the oil change I did today. I'll empty that one into the recycling jug tomorrow after that oil filter is done draining into the oil drain pan.

The article I was in was printed in the News-Sun today. It was pretty good...not entirely accurate to what I said, but overall a good article. We bought two copies of the paper and my Dad called and said he had heard from someone else that I was in the paper and since he was out of town to buy him a copy. So I went out later and got another copy. I think the other article will be in the Daily Herald tomorrow.

Alright, I just looked at their website and the article is up already. I just skimmed it, but what I read was really good. A very cool article.

Anyway, most of the afternoon I spent in front of my computer doing various things. And then Julie had a Stampin' Up workshop tonight that unfortunately only one person came too. She's starting to lose confidence in herself to do this since no one ever seems to show up to her classes. I hope she'll hang in there for at least another year, she's good at it and really enjoys it and she needs things she enjoys in her life.

I checked the Regal Cinemas website tonight to check when their free movies for the summer start and what do you know - they start this week! So Grace and I will have to go this week. The two movies this week are "March of the Penguins" and "Barnyard." I'll have to put these on the SAHD's group site to see if anyone else is interested.

Alright, I've got to get some sleep, tomorrow is already here.

Last Day of VBS

Well Grace got up early today at 7am and we obviously were late for VBS - Ha-Ha. Grace was in the slowest mood today as I couldn't get her to do anything in a timely manner. She got dressed pretty easily but breakfast was an afterthought as she couldn't be bothered to sit long enough to actually eat it; she ate about 2/3 of her cereal. Then we get in the car to leave and we actually will be on time, but the neighbor's dog is out. So I get out of the car and go to retrieve their dog and place him back in his yard/house. It takes him a few minutes to warm up to me so it took a few minutes longer than I wanted it to to get him back there. So we were a couple of minutes late to the church. We get there and she doesn't get out of the car, she just sits there. This was how the whole morning was with her. I finally get her out of the car and she's walking as slowly as she possibly can to go in - this kid is exhausted.

So I finally get her dropped off and get on my way to run some errands. I ran to T.J. Maxx to get some clothes and then to Target for a little light grocery shopping. Then over to the park district to register Grace from some summer classes. The photography one we really wanted her to be in has no one registered yet and they need 6 kids by next Friday. So I registered her anyway just in case more people sign up before it's canceled. But I did register her for a nature bugs class where she'll learn about all kinds of outside stuff that she's always interested in. That doesn't start until July and we'll be on vacation for one week of the class, but I know she'll have a good time in that class.

After that I ran to the Home Depot in Round Lake to get my weed trimmer attachment that I couldn't find anywhere. I looked it up online and was able to see that they had one there; saved a lot of driving around--including expensive gas. Also called the Ford Store today and come to find out my car hasn't even been put on the assembly line yet. So who knows when we'll actually get this silly car. We ordered it 6 weeks ago Wednesday. Like the sales person said, maybe we aren't meant to have this car.

Went and picked Grace up from VBS and came home to have lunch. She wasn't really interested in eating that either - mostly because her friend from around the corner was here for about an hour and a half. So she would rather have played with her instead of eat. They've only played a couple of times and she is a little younger than Grace, but they get along really well and they place nicely together. After she left we just kind of hung out and watched the Cubs game in Hi-Def. Man Hi-Def is really nice. If you don't have it, you need it. Actually you will need it in the next 5 years or so (I can't remember when exactly) as standard definition TV will be no more, they're phasing it out at some point in the future.

After that Grace went to swim at her friend across the street's house and I finally got serious about what to make for dinner. But it was really too late to do anything about dinner. We don't really have much except pork chops that are frozen solid and hamburgers with no buns to eat them with. I thought of making egg salad but we didn't have all the ingredients for that either. Obviously I should have decided this before my light grocery shopping or just decided on something while actually shopping. But for as hectic as the morning was we were lucky to get out of the house with any hope of getting their close to on-time. So I'm sure you know what's coming, we just went to pick something up for dinner. It didn't make Julie too happy, but it was dinner and it wasn't very expensive ($18 for five people) and it was taken care of. I'll do better next time - no really I will.

At least I got the other things she wanted me to do today done like giving a donation to her sister who is doing the Relay for Life tonight in Buffalo Grove and also finally registering Grace for those park district classes, plus washing Grace's new mattress pad and sheets as we are out of pull-ups and have decided not to buy any more. So she's likely to be wetting the bed fairly regularly for a while. Hopefully it won't take too long for her to recognize when she needs to go while she's sleeping.

So the weekend comes tomorrow and hopefully I can actually get some projects around the house done. Julie's talking about shopping in the morning, hopefully she'll take the loaner car as her car needs an oil change desperately. I will need to get up fairly early to do that so I have some shade as it's supposed to be in the mid-90's tomorrow. Julie has a workshop Saturday night and Sunday is Father's Day. Both articles are set to run in the newspapers this weekend and if I can, I'll put a link in here when I find out about them.

Swimming in Hot Weather

Grace had VBS today and I had to wake her up at 8:45 to get her to church at 9:00am. After I dropped her off I came home so I could get the driveway seal coated. Today was the right day and they were here to do it. I'm so glad I had this company (Adolfo's Sealcoating - Waukegan - 847-782-0758) do it because they did a really nice job; much nicer than the previous company we had. They didn't get any of the sealer on the brickwork that butts directly against the blacktop and there isn't any on the sidewalk either. It was worth every penny!

After that I worked on the DVD recorder and transferring video. I got one show transferred to DVD using the regular video output from my camcorder. So now I can just transfer it this way. It's not how the recorder is supposed to work, but it is working. After this "A" and I went to pick up Grace from VBS. We got there a couple minutes early and were able to hear them all practicing their songs they are going to sing tonight for their mini-concert. It was really cool and actually a little moving. It's pretty cool to listen to 500 kids sing the same song and sing it so well!

After that we were headed to her friend from dance class's house for a swim party. We stopped at Culvers for lunch first and then headed over there. We stayed there until 3:30 because it's impossible to get her to leave any place, let alone when she's having fun swimming. And she did have a good time and so did "A" I think. It was really refreshing to get in a nice cool pool when it's so warm out. The official high today was 87° with 73% humidity here in Grayslake, but my car said it was 90°; although that's only 3 degrees difference. Then we had to stop at the local paint store and return some wallpaper and fabric samples. We're trying to create and finalize our decorating plan for our family room downstairs here. The overall theme is Academy Awards/Kodak Theater. We know we want red velvet drapes that imitate a movie theater, and that old tyme look of the old movie theaters. So I showed her the patterns Julie and I liked and she picked from those the ones she thought the most in line with what we're looking to do. For those she ordered some samples for us to use in determining which one we really want and what color to paint the room in. She suggested we start by deciding what to do with the ceiling both with wallpaper and color and what furniture we want to put in the room as well. After that we can finalize any plans for the walls, etc.

After that we finally came back home. Grace and "A" only had about 30 minutes to play before "A" had to go home. Then Grace went to play at her friends house across the street. I went with to make sure it was alright that she go over there and then I ended up staying and talking to her friends dad. It's nice to have adult conversations. He asked me to fax something for him so I came back home to do that and Julie was already home (oops!) and she was wondering where I had been. We didn't have much time because we needed to get back to church so Grace could do her mini-concert/ice cream social. So I sent the fax and then we were getting ready to go when I realized (pit in bottom of stomach) that I had washed the shirt she was supposed to wear again tonight and forgot to put it in the dryer. So it was soaking wet and I put it in the dryer because we did have a "few" minutes before we had to leave. While it was in the dryer I went to retrieve Grace from across the street. She didn't go too willingly, but it didn't take too long. When I got back Julie had already taken the shirt out of the dryer and it wasn't really dry yet, but it wasn't too bad. She held it in front of the A/C outlets in the car and that helped it dry some more.

Once we were in the gymnasium, it was warm enough to dry anything, so her shirt was dry when we were done. But anyway the concert was really cute and Grace did a great job. I shot video of it and will put that up on her website soon. Then since Julie and I hadn't had dinner we left without the ice cream. We wanted to go somewhere that we could have both and we headed over to DQ in Round Lake. We waited in line and come to find out they don't serve food after 8pm. So we didn't get dinner tonight, just dessert. Guess we should have just stayed and had free ice cream at the church. Hindsight is still 20/20.

Then we came home and I had to call the police since we can't park in the driveway. We can't park in the street without permits unless we call and tell them we're parking there. And since my little "run-in" with the local police recently we don't want to take any chances. By the way, still no updates/no word on our new car; and no update on the rebuttal I sent to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan about our issue with

Post Cubs Game Tiredness

So I got home late last night from the Cubs game and still had to get up to take Grace to VBS. I'm really dragging today - I have to get more sleep. Grandma (Julie's Mom) came with her today because it was bring a relative/senior day so she got to spend the whole time with Grace. But that time was shortened because we were really late getting there. There was a fatal accident this morning in Grayslake just a few blocks east of the church. So Rte.'s 120 and 83 were closed for three and a half hours this morning. It took us 20 minutes to drive the 2 miles or so to church. Here is the article from the Chicago Tribune. While Grace was in VBS I came back home because I thought my neighbor was having his driveway sealed and I wanted to get mine done too. Apparently I got mixed up because it's actually tomorrow.

So I went to pick Grace up and both her and Grandma had a wonderful time. Grandma was going to Libertyville to buy something afterwards, and Grace and I went to Best Buy and got a cable I needed to transfer video from my camcorder to my DVD recorder. Then we grabbed some lunch and came home because the neighbor that's helping out with Grace this summer (I'll call her "A" from now on) was going to be at our house at 1pm and we were a few minutes late. So then Grace's friend that she always plays with on Wednesdays came over and her friend from across the street. "A" had a really good time with them and had them busy doing all sorts of role playing and other fun stuff. So then I started dinner and "A" went home around 5pm and then Julie came home and we all had taco's. It's so funny that Grace loves tacos. I mean she really gets excited about them. She only puts sour cream and shredded cheese on them, but she usually has two. It's pretty much the only food she gets excited about.

Then Julie was getting ready for her monthly Stampin' Up meeting which she was hosting this month. Right after her friends got here, Grace was saying that the friend from across the street wondered if she could go to the park with her. I was confused because it was 7:30 and they usually get ready for bed then, but she wasn't kidding, they were going. So we all went down on our bikes to the park for a few minutes. I was pulling Grace and her friend from across the street in the trailer on my bike. And her Dad was pulling her sister in another trailer. And then "A" and her brother came with too. So when we got home Julie's meeting was almost over. I helped Grace get in her PJ's and then while Julie was putting her to bed I had to return some books to the library. While I was out I stopped at Wal-Mart to get a few things.

I forgot to mention much about transferring video from my camcorder to the DVD recorder. That's what I was trying to do most of the afternoon while "A" was playing with the girls. I mentioned that I needed a cable. This cable is a firewire cable that you would normally use on your computer to transfer video. But our new DVD recorder has a DV-In port which is firewire, but it's the 4-pin variety and usually on a computer it's the 6-pin. So I needed a 4-pin to 4-pin cable instead of the normal 4-pin to 6-pin cable. That's what Grace and I got at Best Buy (plus the first season of Las Vegas on DVD) and I got it all hooked up and the DVD recorder wasn't showing anything on the TV screen. So I'm thinking their is something wrong with either the cable or the input for the DVD recorder. I wrote LG's customer service and they want me to call about getting it serviced. So I guess tomorrow I'll try using regular video cables and see if that will work. I'll get is serviced later after I get everything transferred (as long as I can without using my computer.) It was very frustrating though especially since I went and bought a special cable to get everything working and then it didn't.

Cubs Game V3.0

Grace woke up late today like 2 minutes before the photographer from the Daily Herald got here. She let him in with her pajamas on. So he waited while she got dressed and then he took some pictures of her brushing her hair and of us eating breakfast and then getting in the car to go to Vacation Bible School (VBS).

While she was at VBS, I went to Best Buy to look around and then to Target to get Grace a second waterproof mattress pad for her bed. We're going to cut her off from the pull-ups at night, so we need the extra mattress pad.

She had fun at VBS again today and was pretty excited about it. After I picked her up we came home and were going to have lunch, but she got to playing with the neighbors outside in their new slip-n-slide and refused to eat. So she missed eating except for a snack. Then other neighbors were over and lots of playing took place. It was kind of a crazy afternoon. Then I sent Grace over to the neighbor across the street since I had to leave to go to my 3rd Cubs game of the season. I was stopping at one BIL's house on the way to the other to pick them up and our nephew came with too. So we left a little after 5pm and didn't get to the parking lot by Wrigley Field until 7:30pm. So we missed the first inning and a half. But the game went 12 innings so we got our money's worth (they were free tickets anyway.)

It was a good game, but they didn't win, so that wasn't so good. But we had a good time and actually since the game got over so late it was good after all that we drove instead of taking the train because we would have been home much later if we were waiting for a train to take us home.

I never really wrote anything about the recital on Sunday. It went really well; albeit a long day as well. We got there before Noon and Julie just dropped me off as she was going to get some snacks and some video tapes for me and I had to set up the video equipment and then help sell tickets. The videotaping went well except there was one dance where I accidentally pressed pause instead of record in the middle of the dance. So I missed at least a minute of that dance but other than that it went pretty well. Everyone danced really good and Grace and Julie looked great. I'm still working on transferring the video - I've been so busy I haven't had the 4 hours it'll take to finish that. Plus I needed a new cable to be able to transfer it straight from the camera to the DVD recorder I bought a month or two ago.

It's really cool to be able to record from the satellite straight to DVD; that's all I've done so far--plus recording from TIVO to DVD. Now if I could just convince Julie that we need a new Plasma TV and a new a/v receiver. Actually the receiver was acting up the other day. I was trying to make sure a DVD recorded properly and all I could hear was the TV; I couldn't hear the DVD playing at all. It had me worried more about the DVD recorder because I wasn't sure that it was recording the sound onto the DVD's. But it was fine the next day, so I'm not sure how long the receiver will continue to work plus the TV's sound hasn't been working in a long time which is why we rely on the receiver to provide the sound for us. So that's about it for today and for Sunday.

Vacation Bible School

...is a wonderful thing. When Grace came home from there today, it was her first day and her first year, she was singing the songs and actually telling me what she did, the games she played, what the story was about. Whenever she came home from preschool she was never like that, maybe a few times, but generally if you tried to get any information out of her she would just say she didn't remember or didn't know. So we're pretty sure she really enjoyed it and she seems excited about going back tomorrow. I'm excited too because I'll actually get some free time.

So today was our neighbor's daughter's last day of school and she's going to be coming to our house most days during the week to help me with Grace. She took her babysitting class through the park district and she seems really eager to watch Grace and help out. The only thing was that her parents were going to talk to us over this last weekend about the whole plan for how everything was going to work, but we weren't really home so we never got to talk. So when she came over today I as a little surprised, but not a lot. I did know it was her last day of school today, but I just don't understand the whole going for an hour thing. I do in the sense that if they go for a certain amount of time they get credit for a full day from the state and get the funding they need for it, but it just seems like such a waste of everybody's time and effort.

So she came over after I had taken Grace to VBS and was with us until one of her parents got home which was about 5pm I think. So she was a big help with Grace today and kept her occupied a lot which was really good because we had the film crew here and the reporter stopped by for a few minutes in the afternoon. The film crew showed up at the time we were leaving to go pick Grace up from VBS so he came with us. He mic'd me up and was asking questions and shooting video in the car on the way there. Then he shot video of our neighbor and I going in to pick her up and then leaving to go back home. He shot video of me doing a little vacuuming and making and serving lunch. I had to save the vacuuming because he had called early in the day and asked what my plans were and I said cleaning the house and mowing the grass. He wanted to shoot video of me doing at least some of that. So I offered to mow the grass first and then I was going to start cleaning. Well if you remember from above, he showed up as we were leaving to pick up Grace so I had already done most of the cleaning but saved one rug to vacuum after we got back.

And I didn't get the back yard mowed either during the time Grace was in VBS, I had to do that later. Just before lunch Grace's friend from across the street came over also and she claimed she hadn't had lunch (I was pretty sure she had already eaten because she usually eats at a particular time and it was after that time) so I made her a grilled cheese sandwich anyway and I wasn't surprised when she didn't eat it since I had already presumed that she ate lunch already. So we all had lunch and then a little while later the reporter came and interviewed me and he interviewed Grace a little and then he had a few more questions and he left. The film crew stayed longer and shot video of the three girls playing and of us trying to go for a short bike ride. I figured doing something outside would be good considering it was a nice day and all, but unfortunately the neighbor from across the street was really tired and ready for a nap so we didn't ride our bikes for very long. But the video guy was happy with the footage he had gotten so it was just fine.

So he left and we had about three hours before Julie was coming home, so we all went in to cool off and relax. Grace was a little cranky herself and wasn't really cooperating too well. But we all got in front of a computer and were playing around for a while and then the neighbor went home because her parent/parents were home and Grace and I went outside and I pushed her on the swing for a few minutes and then was mowing the back yard. If you remember, it was like a field. I have to say though that my lawn mower really rocks. I used to have a craftsman mower that it would have taken me twice as long to cut the back yard considering how long it was, but this mower just pushes right on through without complaining or bogging down or anything. It's a Toro Recycler (model 20041) and it just plain works great. I didn't think I'd really care about electric start, but it's a nice feature to have and the self propelled I had never wanted either because all the old lawn mowers I had tried in the past that had it I just hated it. But this is done really nicely and works quite well.

While I was mowing her other friend from next door came over and played with Grace until a little while later when Julie came home and then his dinner was ready so he went back home. So when I was done mowing I came in and Julie and I talked and then we decided just to go out to eat to Dog-n-Suds. So I made Grace's dinner since she won't eat anything from there and we headed out. As soon as we pull in my phone rings and it's my BIL and he's wanting to know the logistics for tomorrow since we're going to the Cubs game at night. Well apparently as we pulled in the lights on the car turned on because we were under a covered area and I guess the car thought it was dark enough to turn on the lights. So I'm on the phone and the guy in front of us in his convertible starts flashing his lights at me asking me to turn them off. Obviously they turn themselves on and they also turn themselves off, so I figure he can wait a couple of minutes for them to turn themselves off while I talk to my BIL. But no, that's not good enough as he continues flashing his lights. So I turn off the car and show him the key in my hand. The lights will now turn off in 3 minutes. Not good enough for him as he GETS OUT OF HIS CAR and walks over and says our lights are directly in his eyes and to turn off the lights. I guess he doesn't give a crap that I'm on the phone and my family is with me and that the car is off and that they will turn off on their own. So I turn them off and say some snide comment and he 's finally appeased and walks back to his car and now I can finally talk to my BIL about the Cubs game. What an a$$. Sometimes I just hate people. All they care about is themselves. Maybe a little compassion or patience would be a good gift for that man.

So we finally order and get our food and Grace is just completely out of control. She's really tired and it shows, but we make it through dinner and get home. Then Julie takes her to get ready for bed and she just really loses it and can't cooperate for anything Julie tries to get her to do. But she finally gets to bed and I settle down to call my Gramma because today is her 79th birthday. So I call her and she seems to be doing quite well and seems happy and everything. She's going to a nerve specialist tomorrow to see about why her feet have been red and swollen and painful for the last 4 to 5 years. So that's good because she says she wants to walk more or even ride her bike because she wants to stay active. That's really good to hear. I don't want to lose her too and that's a really good sign that she wants to stick around and enjoy life as long as she can.

So we talk for over an hour and at the same time Julie's talking to Aunt Connie on the land-line phone. We both get done about the same time and watch most of the news together - neither of us can really stay awake at this point. So then we wake up and now I'm writing this before getting to bed. I have another fun day planned for tomorrow; we've got VBS obviously and another photographer from the Sun-Times is coming first thing in the morning and then there's the Cubs game. Can't go to too many Cubs games!

Recital 2007

Wow was today ever a long day. We left the house this morning at 10:30 or so and just got home at 9:50. What a day, we're all just exhausted. The recital itself was great. Grace and Julie did a great job. I'll get my computer chewing on the video either tomorrow or Tuesday.

Didn't get anything done around the house. And I'm too tired to write much of anything else so I'll write more tomorrow.

Stage Rehearsal

Today was stage rehearsal and we were there a little longer than I thought we would be because we stayed to watch all the dances. Plus we picked up Julie's Mom on the way there and she came with us. Then we dropped her off on the way home. Stage rehearsal itself went pretty good I think. There were a few glitches like when the curtains broke and they couldn't close them. That's bad when you get to the end of the show and you can't close the curtains, but overall things went well. So I think everyone is ready for tomorrow.

As I'm writing this however Grace is still not asleep. She's pulling out every card she's got for a reason why she can't go to sleep. It might be partly because she took a nap in the car on the way home, but who knows. She didn't eat much of her dinner and that usually means she doesn't feel well. So hopefully she isn't getting sick.

Sadly, my whole family won't be able to come and see Grace dance this year. My Dad and my Aunt are both going out to Uncle Chuck's wake and funeral. And my Sister is going to our cousins graduation party. So I've got four extra tickets if anyone wants them. :-)

I tried to get a few things done around the house today to make it more presentable, but we just really didn't have any time at home. I was helping my Aunt (different from the last paragraph) with a computer problem on the phone in the morning after I paid a few bills. Talked to my Sister for a few minutes too. My niece had her recital today and so we couldn't go to that since we were at stage rehearsal all day. I was amazed at how she was describing how they do their recitals. For our recitals they have two shows and they generally go for about two hours each. For their recital, they have between 6 and 7 shows and each one is about an hour and a half. I was amazed. That's a lot of dancing! Now that would take all day!

I did get a few minutes to work in the garden a little. I finally got my netting put down and my strawberries are mostly protected now. I also put the new post caps on all the garden posts so they all look nicer. Now I just need to finish weeding and till the soil so I can maybe plant a few things. I need to think of someplace to transplant the strawberries to next year because they take up a lot of room in the garden. They are probably taking up 1/3 of the garden and thats too much in my opinion.

I'm so ready to get our new car. This car is nice, but it's not perfect for us and I'm just tired of driving it. I feel like a yuppy in it. Although we did see two "older" ladies driving one tonight on the way home from Wisconsin. Speaking of Wisconsin, we couldn't believe the gas prices up there. We're definitely filling up before we come home tomorrow. I think I mentioned the other day that the cheapest I've seen around here is $3.33/gallon. Up in Kenosha it's only $2.99/gallon. WOW! 34¢ a gallon can add up quick!

That's all I can remember, so I'll add more if I think of it tomorrow.

Great Uncle Chuck

I forgot to put Uncle Chuck's obituary on here yesterday. Here it is in case you're interested.

Saying Goodbye

...is never easy.

We went to a going away party for our friends that are moving out of the country at the end of the summer. They're moving up to Minnesota for the summer on Monday, and we'll still see them tomorrow and Sunday but the time is drawing closer and closer. They are just THE nicest people and we truly will miss them. Grace is going to miss her friend I know that. Fortunately they will be "connected" when they're over on the other side of the world and so hopefully we can stay in touch through the years they'll be gone.

Alright, sorry to have started this out on a sad note. Grace AND I got to sleep in today and that was certainly welcome! We had a pretty good morning and then were going to the chiropractor and of course we were late--which we never are for him, usually we're really early and are waiting because he's not ready for regular patients yet. He has certain hours where he does initial consultations that require x-rays and the whole analysis. But it didn't matter as he was behind schedule and was actually busy. He's never busy in the middle of the day, but he was today. So we actually had to wait which we also never have to do, unless you're really early. After that, we drove up to my new favorite store, the Menards in Antioch. We stopped and had lunch on the way. I needed those new post toppers for the garden fence and some type of stakes to use to cover up the strawberries which I didn't get to today. Hopefully I can get to that tomorrow. This weekend is such a busy one. We'll be spending most of our time up in Kenosha for the Recital. Tomorrow we're leaving at 11:15am to go up there and probably won't be home before 4:30pm and then Sunday we'll probably leave by 10:30am and not be home before 6:30 and that's assuming we don't go to dinner afterwards which we normally do.

After Menards, we stopped at the grocery store to get a side dish to bring to dinner tonight. I got 14 ears of corn on the cob. We brought it home and I threw it in the cooler and added water. That's how you cook corn on the cob on the grill if you didn't know that. That's the secret, don't remove any of the skin or the silk and soak them for at least an hour in water. Start the grill, let it heat up and then spread the coals around and I usually add some more fresh coals so the fire doesn't get low near the end of cooking. Then add them and I generally turn them about every 20 minutes and it takes about an hour. All that water inside the husks steams the corn from the inside out while the charcoal imparts it's own flavor throughout the whole ear of corn. Mmmm mmmm good!

Then we get home from dinner tonight and my poor Aunt, she needs help with her computer and I wasn't home long enough to call her today. I'll have to call her first thing in the morning tomorrow before we head out to Kenosha. So look for that call Luvy - I didn't forget about you!

I was checking online today about renting a professional video camera to use when I record the recital as I always do. I just have a consumer level Canon mini-dv video recorder. I wanted to rent one that was better so that the end result is higher quality, but the price was a little too steep since I'm not going to be paid for any type of video I produce. And even if I produced a video that I tried to sell, I'm not that good, so it's really not worth their spending much money on it. So with Julie's level head, we nixed that idea. It would have been about $200 for one day to rent it. And you generally have to put a down-payment for the full sales price down before you take it and then you get that money back when you return the item you've rented. (You know my track record with a down-payment being returned.)

Libertyville Lincoln Mercury

Libertyville Lincoln Mercury - and why to not do business with them.

I've decided to create a web site with all the information related to this experience with the Sales Department and Owner of Libertyville Lincoln Mercury. I'll add this at a later date obviously, but want to get started here with our horrible attempt to purchase a car from this dealership. Please do not do business with Libertyville Lincoln Mercury. They have unfair business practices and try to take as much of your money as they can whether they deserve it or not.

Here is our complaint dated 4 May 2007 to the Better Business Bureau
My wife Julie and I ordered a new car (Black 2008 Mercury Mariner Hybrid 4WD VIN# 4M2CU39H58KJ09107) through Libertyville Lincoln Mercury on 3 March 2007. When ordering this vehicle we specifically asked what would happen if we didn't buy the car for some unforeseen reason and they didn't answer the question, instead stating that I'm sure we won't have to worry about that. While we were provided a copy of the order worksheet that we signed, we were not provided a copy of the back of this document where allegedly it states that if we don't take deliver of the vehicle after having special ordered it that we will forfeit the money we put down as a down payment which was $1500, keeping in mind we asked this specific question and were told it was nothing to worry about. Along the course of the vehicle being built and delivered to the dealership, several things happened that made us not want to do business with this dealership anymore and we were pushed beyond our limits for dealing with this business when told we would have to come to pick up the vehicle earlier than expected. The car should have taken about six weeks from the order date to come in and we had a verbal agreement that they were honoring for the dealership to retain said vehicle on their lot for 30 days after arrival from the factory. We were informed on 13 April that the vehicle had arrived (in my mind one day early) and we would need to pick it up by 7 May. When I questioned why we were only being given three weeks to pick up the vehicle I was told by the sales representative that they didn't know the car was on their lot for seven days and that they were informing me as soon as they knew. We weren't prepared with sufficient financing by the date they required us to pick up the car (7 May 2007) and when I asked if we could pick it up on 15 May instead, I was told that no, I'd have to come in on 7 May. Then the sales representative said that they didn't work on the 7th and that I could therefore come in on 8 May to get the vehicle. I approached the sales representative yesterday (2 May 2007) and stated that I wasn't happy with how I'd been treated, didn't wish to take possession of the vehicle any longer and wanted my money back. I was then referred to the sales manager and was basically told that they keep a lawyer on retainer and that fighting me won't cost them anything, that I'm wasting my time and that they have no intention of returning my money to me. I said you have the ability to tear up the document I signed and he replied that he only works there and doesn't own the walls. I said there is an owner (Dan Marks) that owns the walls that is capable of doing that. His reply was that the owner wasn't willing to do that.

This was assigned case number: 94119981
Here is their initial response dated 14 May 2007:
Contact Name and Title: Dan Marks, president
Contact Phone: 847-367-1700
Contact Email: llmdan@aol.com
In response to Mr. and mrs Serres complaint, The serres did order a vehicle from Libertyville L-M on March 3 2007. This vehicle was a special order 2008 Mariner Hybrid. All Paperwork was signed including a Buyers Order, Vehicle confirmation sheet, and credit apps. They also gave a $1500 non-refundable deposit. When the vehicle arrived from the factory in April, the customer stated he did not want to pickup the vehicle until May because he had one remaining payment on his other vehicle. The dealership said no problem and scheduled a date of May 8th. The first week of May Mr serres came in and stated he did not want the vehicle and wanted his money back. Bill Baroud, the sales manager, asked him why he was backing out, the vehicle was exactly as ordered and the price did not change. Mr serres first said he wanted to pick the car up on May 14th, Mr Baroud said fine But then Mr serres told Bill Baroud he had bought another vehicle the other day and just wanted his money back. The dealership now has a vehicle we ordered special, that was not intended for inventory and that we are paying 9 1/2 % interest carrying costs. The deposit is non-refundable however according to the Illinois Attorney General and previous cases regarding this matter, the deposit can be used in the future as credit toward another vehicle purchase less the current carrying costs. The dealership did everything it could to keep this sale however we should not be penalized because the Serres decided to buy another car two months after ordering the 2008 Mariner Hybrid.

Our response posted 15 May 2007
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Let me start by stating that when we ordered this vehicle from the dealership, we specifically asked the sales rep if for some unforeseen reason we had to back out of this deal if we would get our money back and she said not to worry about it. Also please note that it states nowhere on any documentation we received at the time we ordered the vehicle that the deposit is not refundable. Why would I cancel an order if I believed I would not receive the down payment back considering I received no product from this business?

While the dealership may classify this vehicle as a special order, they will have absolutely no problem selling it as the only thing not on this vehicle is a sunroof. It has every other option available. In fact the reason the dealership didn't want to come down on the price of this vehicle is because it is in such high demand. The sales rep stated this many times and also said after the vehicle arrived at the dealership that many people were looking at it because they wanted one and this was the only one they had in stock. So the fact that this was a factory order should have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. Why don't we wait and see when the vehicle sells as it was readded to their regular inventory this week.

The next item Mr. Marks mentions is that we set a date of May 8 for pickup. This is true, but only after great discussion with Mrs. Benkiel. Our original agreement was that they would retain this vehicle on their lot for 30 days after it arrived from the factory. Mrs. Benkiel called us on the 13th and said it had arrived. She then stated we would need to come in by the 7th to pick it up. When I questioned the timing, she said that it had actually arrived on the 7th and that she just learned it was there one week later. How does an employee not notice a customer's car on the lot for a week? Their lot isn't all that large to begin with. I asked her at that time if we couldn't come in and pick it up on the 15th especially since this would be about 30 days after she called to inform us of the vehicles arrival. She said no, that we would have to come in on the 7th - no wait the 8th would be better because she doesn't work on Mondays and the 7th was a Monday. When Mr. Marks mentions that Mr. Baroud agreed easily that I could pick up the vehicle on the 14th, this was only after I said I no longer wanted the vehicle and they were trying to do everything they could to prevent the sale from being terminated. I have no intention of ever purchasing a vehicle from this dealership. The level of customer service is basically non-existent. Everything we asked for was denied until we stated we no longer wanted the vehicle and wanted our down payment returned.

Final response from the business on 21 May 2007:
THE BASIC FACTS ARE THAT THE SERRES ORDERED A VEHICLE SPECIAL AND THEN TWO MONTHS LATER THEY BOUGHT ANOTHER VEHICLE WITHOUT CONSIDERING THE BUSINESS RAMIFICATIONS OF THERE DECISION. LIBERTYVILLE L-M SHOULD NOT BE PENALIZED. THE DEALERSHIP NOW HAS A VEHICLE IN STOCK WE DID NOT ORDER AND ARE PAYING INTEREST TO HOLD THAT VEHICLE. WE GAVE THE SERRES ONE MONTH AFTER THE VEHICLE ARRIVED TO PICK IT UP SO I BELIEVE WE WERE TRYING TO BE CUSTOMER FRIENDLY. THE VEHICLE WAS EXACTLY AS THEY ORDERED IT AND THE PRICE WAS EXACTLY AS WHEN THEY ORDERED IT. WHEN YOU SIGN AND GIVE A DEPOSIT FOR AN ORDER, THE DEALER CANNOT RETURN A $30,000 VEHICLE TO THE FACTORY. THE DEPOSIT IS TO PREVENT CUSTOMERS FROM CHANGING THERE MIND TWO MONTHS AFTER ORDERING A VEHICLE.
I AM SORRY THAT THE SERRES ARE NOT HAPPY BUT WE WOULD HAVE PREFERRED THEM TO TAKE THE CAR AS AGREED AND NOT STICK US WITH A VEHICLE WE DID NOT ORDER. AS FAR AS THE DEALERSHIP IS CONCERNED THE DEPOSIT IS NOT GOING TO BE REFUNDED AND THIS CASE IS CLOSED

So as you can see this led nowhere except that the dealership now has an unresolved complaint on their Better Business Bureau record for the next 36 months. We also were smart enough to put this down payment on our credit card and are disputing the charge with Visa. After this we sent a personal letter to the owner Mr. Dan Marks via certified mail with return receipt whom never gave us the courtesy to write back or call us as a result of this.

Our next line of defense is the Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Since we received the nasty response that closed the whole BBB complaint, I immediately mailed the complaint to Lisa Madigan. I'll put this letter up on the website once I get the site created, which will hopefully be this weekend. She is doing the same thing as the BBB website and basically moderating our exchange of why I feel I deserve my money back and why they want to keep it. I spent several hours last night authoring our rebuttal letter to mail in and I think it's a good one. Hopefully they will see the light and just give me my money back. This is ridiculous. I'm not giving up until that money is back in my hands. This is only the beginning as I've got many more avenues to pursue and many more resources to pour into this.

So this is where it stands as of now. I just checked the USPS website and here were the results:
Your item arrived at 1:49 PM on June 8, 2007 in CHICAGO, IL 60604. So Lisa Madigan's office has my letter. Hopefully the dealership will get it soon. I will obviously keep you apprised of any changes in this "case" and I may even be asking for your help if the owner continues to be uncooperative--this is one of the avenues I can pursue.

Sorry for the long post. Hopefully it wasn't too boring. Comment if you feel this isn't or even if you feel it is fair, just please comment! I'd like to know if you feel we're justified. Just from the people I've talked to, many of which have much more experience in this type of situation than I do - including the law profession, agree completely with me.

The Storms are a Coming

Today was busy as usual. But the real story was last night. After I wrote my blog last night, I stayed up until 4:00am writing a rebuttal letter to the Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan about Libertyville Lincoln Mercury. I think this is the first time I've actually mentioned them and if you remember a few days ago I said I would at some point explain this whole issue with ordering a new car and canceling the order. I'll get to that later after I write about the day today.

Obviously I had a difficult time getting up since I only got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep, but Grace also slept in until 9:00am which is when we're supposed to leave for dance class. So I got her ready real quick and thankfully she was in a pretty good mood. I gave her a quick snack and we "hit the road" as Aunt Connie would say. Unfortunately we were about 5 minutes late to dance class. It was the last week for dance class before summer break as our recital is on Sunday so a lot of extra people were there like parents that are normally working or grandparents that maybe wanted a preview of the dance before Sunday. Grace's friends Mom works for the Lake County Sherriff's Department and I brought the letter I stayed up most of the night writing for her to review. Julie and her said pretty much the same thing that it sounded very professional and that I had really done a good job. So anyway, Grace got her costume today to bring home and our friends that are moving out of the country were there and we were all saying goodbye. We're going to see them tomorrow for a dinner at another friends house and then Saturday for Stage Rehearsal and then Sunday for the Recital. Then on Monday they leave for Minnesota to visit family for the summer before heading overseas. So that was pretty sad. I don't think Grace really understands but she has asked when she'll see her friend again and I said I don't know if we ever will and she gets pretty sad, so maybe she does understand.

After dance class was over Grace was in no hurry to leave as usual, so she was coloring and I was making phone calls for some things I needed to follow up on. Then we went to lunch with my SIL. That was really nice and relaxing and Grace ate her whole lunch today. Plus she had two snacks and a sucker after dance class plus the snacks she had on the way to dance class, so she was filling up. Then we came home and I needed to fax my letter to the husband of the person who read my letter at dance class. He also works for the Lake County Sherriff's Department, is also a car dealership owner and works with arbitration so his opinion of my letter was very important to me. Unfortunately, my fax wasn't working right and it took some time for me to get it working. Grace when we first got home wanted to play outside and I told her she could for a few minutes, but that was it because it was just too hot. She didn't even pursue the 10 minutes for some reason and instead asked to play a preschool "game" on the computer. They are programs that are like games to her, but she's really learning things like patterns, same or different, does it belong, etc. So while she was occupied with that I finally got the fax working and sent the letter to my friend. He called me back and said that first of all he was sorry we had to go through all of this. He said we were right on the money with the letter and gave me some more ideas to follow up with if this letter wasn't successful in getting our money returned. He also basically said that the dealership is just playing hardball and want to keep our money.

I also got a call from another local newspaper today, the Daily Herald. I'm becoming famous! They are also writing an article for Father's Day but are taking a different angle and it sounds really interesting. The reporter said they did this for Mother's Day and had a good response so they're pursuing doing this for Father's Day also. She's contacting Father's from all different walks and trying to get a snapshot or glimpse into the Father/Child bond that exists in each situation. She did a much better job of explaining it, but trust me, it sounded very cool and interesting. I can't wait to read it. She called me back this evening and conducted the interview over the phone and is sending a camera crew out on Tuesday morning to take some shots of Grace and I doing our normal morning routine.

Speaking of newspapers, the reporter from the News-Sun called back today and said he wanted to come out on Monday and interview me and would also be bringing a camera crew and a video crew to shoot some video for their website. We didn't set up a time yet as when I returned his phone call he said he was in the middle of something (his phone was cutting in and out) and that he'd call later. I'm guessing he'll call back tomorrow.

Grace got to play at her friend across the street's house this afternoon and she was excited about that, but her friend was a little sleepy or didn't feel well or something. She had gone to the zoo this morning with her dad and since we had dance class, we couldn't go. So her dad said that she was exhausted when they got back. Maybe her nap wasn't enough to keep her going for the rest of the day. Then her friends mom's train was delayed for I believe mechanical reasons so she was really late getting home tonight. She's leaving for a business trip tomorrow overseas, so I'm sure that's the last thing she wanted tonight as she won't see her family for a week.

Then Julie went over to the friend that read my letter this morning's house and practiced her dances for the recital on Sunday. She took Grace with her so that her and her friend could play together and so I could get a little free time. I ate some leftovers and worked in the garden. I think it's too late to plant a garden now, but it looks horrible and we could still plant a few things that don't take a long time to grow. I've got to tell you though that the strawberries look GREAT! I had one that was ripe and it sure was yummy! So I need to get the netting out there TOMORROW so the birds and other varmints don't take them all like they did last year. I'm going to get a crop of strawberries if it kills me! The garden needs some general maintenance too as the posts aren't looking so great. I think they need some new toppers as the ones I have look very worn. The birds are always landing there en route to the bird feeders and they of course leave their muck/fertilizer right on my posts. Sounds like it's time for a trip to Menards!

After that, I just watched the Cubs game and talked to my cousin on the phone. I forgot to mention that my great-Uncle Chuck who was, I believe, my Grandmothers Brother passed away yesterday. Almost all of the older generation in our family has passed. There aren't too many left. It's very sad. Unfortunately we aren't going to be able to go to the wake and probably not the funeral either. The wake is Sunday and that's recital and I'm not being selfish in that I want to see my daughter and my wife dance, it's that I also shoot video for the dance studio and I believe I'll be taking and selling tickets this year as well. Which reminds me, I need to see about renting an HD video camera tomorrow. I just wrote that down, or I WOULD forget. But I only remember meeting my Uncle Chuck one time and that was just a few years ago when we went out to see my Aunt Annabel. They lived out in Seattle I believe for what seemed like forever to me, and then they've been living out west of here now for quite a while too.

So I think that about covers today. The title of the post is in reference to the approaching storms we have right now complete with tornado warnings. It's supposed to really storm tonight and it's a cool front so tomorrow should thankfully be much cooler than today - it was 92 degrees and VERY humid. The thunder is starting already. I'll post a second blog about Libertyville Lincoln Mercury.

Feels like Thursday

Tomorrow's going to be long. For some reason I thought today was Thursday and that we could sleep in tomorrow morning but that's not the case. So hopefully Grace will get a good nights sleep and be alright tomorrow. We did go to Great America with Grace's friend from school today. He and Grace had a great time. It was a great day to go: perfect weather when we were there, not too many people were there, the kids all got along great and we just overall had a good time. Unfortunately I didn't feel like bringing the camera today and Grace was up on stage dancing with the Wiggles. So I just got some shots with my cell phone. She's on the right with the yellow pants. Here it is:



We brought lunch home with us and she for some reason didn't want to eat. Her friend from down the street that she normally plays with on Wednesdays was home and since we were home fairly early from Great America, she could have played with her. I told her we would call and see if they could play together after she ate her lunch. She never did, so she didn't get to see her today. But a few hours later we called her friend from across the street and they played together until dinner time. She ate her dinner and seems fine, I'm just hoping she isn't getting sick. You never know what you can pick up when you are around so many people like that at Great America.

Then tonight Julie had dance class so after dinner she basically got ready for class and left. At least I had a dinner ready today - better than I've been for the last 2 weeks. Then Grace was playing with the next door neighbor until 8:30 and I didn't get her into bed until 9:30, so she'll probably sleep late in the morning and we have dance class, so hopefully she won't be cranky. But it's my own fault so I have no one to blame...

So I guess today was an all-in-all normal/non-eventful day except that we went to Great America which we don't normally do. At least the rain held out until we got home, that was a nice touch - thanks God! Oh, I know what else happened today; my BIL & SIL from Michigan sent emails today saying their newest baby Peri will be having her baptism on July 29. Unfortunately we won't be able to go because we'll be in Colorado on vacation - YEA for vacation - but we were hoping to be able to go to the baptism too. Doesn't look promising. ;-)

Oh, here are some pictures that Great America took of Grace today:





Not spectacular, but better than my phone could take. There was one point when Grace and her friends were around Wags and Dorothy after the show was over and the photographer was just standing there not taking any pictures. That was one time I probably would have paid for those photos, but not if they don't take any.

Also, the News-Sun newspaper called me tonight. They are writing an article for Father's Day about stay-at-home-dads and they want to interview me and take pictures and maybe even video for their website. Sounds pretty exciting, I have to remember to call them back and say yes. Of course then I'll actually have to clean the house...