You must pay

I was finally able to pay for the Escape today. I called the credit union before they could call me this morning. He said that they weren't able to get their hybrid credit program approved through the state of Illinois. So he asked his supervisor and they agreed to allow us to close on the loan today and just get credited later for the amount we're supposed to get back which will be $1000.

Unfortunately we spent most of the day doing that. Grace and I couldn't pick up the check until after 1 pm. Then just before Noon my SIL's called and wondered if we wanted to have lunch at Panera Bread. So we had lunch with them and then drove down to Vernon Hills to pick up the check. Then we drove to Schaumburg to get Julie's signature on the check. Then we drove back to Libertyville to drop off the check at the dealership. We also brought the oil pan off the 302 c.i. engine I have in the newer Mustang for my cousin because he needs it for his 1969 Cougar. He has a new EFI 302 c.i. engine that he originally built for his 1989 Cougar, but with the oil pan it has, it won't fit in the 1969 Cougar.

Anyway, we got home only 5 minutes before Julie did. I didn't feel like making the pork roast on the grill since it was so late, and we just had leftovers. Guess we'll have that pork roast tomorrow night. Unfortunately it's only a two pound roast and we have to feed more people on Friday nights than just ourselves. I'll have to make other "sides" to go with it so we have enough food for everybody.

As short as this is, it is my day in a nutshell today. And even if I wanted to expound further, I don't really have anything else. We didn't have time for much of anything else. I can say that my foot is considerably better today. I haven't iced it at all although I'd like to because it is hurting a little. It didn't really start hurting until late this afternoon. I will ice it before going to bed though.

I heard today that NASA has decided not to repair the shuttle's damaged heat shield tiles. Like I said yesterday - I really don't think that's a good idea. It's just asking for another disaster. I feel you should do everything in your power to prevent that from happening again and I don't think they are doing that. I understand that they've analyzed it probably 100 times maybe even thousands of times but it's a very delicate balance between keeping enough heat away from the ship upon re-entry and allowing too much in. Obviously Columbia allowed too much in and the ship disintegrated because of that very fact. Now they can clearly see that the heat shield on the bottom of the ship where it receives the most amount of heat upon re-entry is damaged and they don't fix it. The only reason I can believe that fixing it might not better their situation is if the supplies that have to fix the repair are inferior to the originals or if repairing it would just end up making it worse somehow. I don't know. It's very scary and I'm sure every astronaut on that ship is worried like you wouldn't believe. I will definitely be praying for them when they return home.

Depending where you are reading this from it may not be news to you but the momma beluga whale at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago gave birth to another calf today. She just had one a year ago and the article mentions that the baby has a half-sister (different mother) that just celebrated her first birthday. I remember years ago when a beluga had a baby and it died and then everyone came out in protest that they shouldn't be in captivity, etc., etc., etc. I'm glad they are doing good. They're really cool to watch. That's my favorite part of the Shedd Aquarium is the Oceanarium where the belugas are housed.





Other than that, there isn't much going on. Oh here is a picture of the bookcase as it looks now.



I still need to put one more shelf up on the right hand side there. That'll be one of the six shelves I haven't painted yet. The other shelves will just be extras or replacements, however you'd like to look at it.

Well football season is upon us. College and professional football start soon. I'm already working on preparation for my fantasy draft which will be on Sunday the 26th. This is one of the most exciting times of the year with all the talk about football and the excitement of the unknown in regards to how each player and each team will do this season. Plus all the trades that occurred and how that affects those players abilities as well as the entire teams capability because of the trade. And don't forget about rookies as sometimes they can impact a team in their first season. Football is definitely my favorite sport. I could watch football all the time. And it doesn't even have to be the game itself, it could be just people talking about football. I watch every game I can during the season; since we have DirecTV we obviously subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket so I CAN watch every game every week. But I can only physically watch one at a time.

My Mom is the same with baseball. She watches baseball all the time and she usually subscribes to the MLB Extra Innings package. She's lucky that she gets to watch her favorite sport for so long as the football season is shorter or at least there are significantly fewer games. NASCAR is the sport where it just goes on forever. I am a NASCAR fan, but haven't really watched this year because my driver Elliot Sadler switched on me to a new team where he's now driving a Dodge. I'm sorry but I just can't root for him in a Dodge. I have to root for someone driving a Ford. Since I haven't picked a new driver to support, I'm just not supporting the sport at all really. But my point of bringing it up was that they only have about 2 months off. Their season is 10 months long if I recall correctly.

Obviously I like baseball too as Grace and I go to several Cubs games every year, but if I had to pick only one sport it would be football hands down. Looking back at my childhood I wish I would have tried out for football or even baseball. I think I could have made one of the teams. I did play soccer in middle school and I was in track for a while too. I think that not having my Dad around when I was younger had an affect on me not doing anything like that. After 7th or 8th grade I didn't do anything sports related anymore except for marching band. I was really into music and even went to college as a music major my first semester. But playing an instrument came so naturally to me that once I got in college and it was something that I actually had to work at I didn't enjoy it any more and changed my major. And changed my major, and changed my major.

I've had trouble deciding what to do "when I grow up" for most of my life. I've never had a desire to do just one thing very strongly for a long time. My interests were and really still are changing all the time. Less so now than ever but nonetheless I still have a problem focusing on one thing and sticking with it for a long time. That's why it takes me so long to finish projects because I get distracted because I think of some other project I want to do or maybe I have to do some other project because it's a necessity. It's a major accomplishment that I've finally finished these bookcases. I first bought the plywood and supplies for this project about two years ago (March 2005.) And now it is actually a bookcase you can put a book on. It should have never taken me that much time and I don't know how I can change so that it doesn't take me that long to do other things. Somehow I need to keep my focus on what I'm doing so that I don't "move on" until I'm ready to move on (or until my current project is ready for me to move on.)