Echo Tap

This past weekend, Erika's sister Karie graduated from Medical College, and is now headed to Milwaukee for another four years of hospital shenanigans. The event was held in the Union Theatre of the UW Union, my first ever trip to the beautiful city of Madison. I captured this image of the program as we were waiting for all of the graduates to cross the stage... Karie was within the first 15, so there was a whole lotta letters after her.... E, G, H, J, K, L, N... you get the idea. I have to say it was the most interesting graduation ceremony I have ever attended, complete with a surprise pep rally at the end. I guess that is what you can buy when it is your last year as dean.

After the ceremony, Erika and I took a very brief walk through part of the UW campus (although if it had been left up to Erika, we wouldn't have done so at all). This man caught my eye - probably not just mine given that setup - and I later noticed his little dinosaur sidekick who is also playing the piccolo.

Our next destination was the Dry Bean, where a small reception was held. The evening's activities included a plastic cup stacking challenge, watching reruns of Scrubs, and attempting to eat fiery hot wings (or as least I thought they were). Later that night, my girlfriend kicked my butt at 501, and so sometime I have to give her a back rub. Hopefully she will forget. And of course, the night wouldn't be complete without letting everyone experience what I had for dinner.

Backyard BBQ

Yesterday Jon and Celina hosted their 3rd annual backyard BBQ. It was a blast. Festivities included bocce ball (yours truly went 2-0); hackey-sack (a full hack is when everyone in the circle touches the bag), and tent-kickball. The food was incredible (thanks go to Jon and his friend Eric for grilling and to everyone else that brought a delicious dish). I tried to capture how great the food was with this pic (thanks Adam)! I got lots of sun, and afterward I was exhausted - the calling card of a great time. The BBQ is a reminder of when I first met Erika - I invited my fiancee to the 1st annual BBQ almost two years ago after a day-long volleyball tournament at Kenney gym. It was a shame that Erika couldn't attend this year - something about a hose and a circus clown - I thought it best not to pry into what she was doing. Or maybe she was working and the hose and circus clown were in a dream I had. Like I said, I got a lot of sun!

Today I played sand volleyball for the first time this season, and it was a blast. My toe started to act up toward the end, but I decided to ignore the pain. My teammate and I went 7-0, quite possibly the best record I have ever posted in sand volleyball - probably for the rest of my life! It helped that he is 2x as good as me, but I held my own. I of course didn't have the foresight to bring along a water bottle, so by the end I was dying of thirst. For the love of the game..

Delinquent

As the title suggests, I have been terribly delinquent in updating my blog lately. So let me fill you in on details...

The largest piece of news that I have is that Erika proposed to me on April 1st 2005. OK, that's not true. I proposed to her in downtown Naperville along the riverwalk. I hired some photographers to hide behind trees and bushes to capture the moment. So what is with the toad pic? Don't worry, we'll get to that. Now that Erika and I are engaged, we have been spending a lot of time researching reception halls in Milwaukee, and at the same time looking at apartments in the northern Chicago suburbs... which brings me to my second life-changing event!

So that Erika and I can be closer together (duh), I will be moving to Chicago toward the end of the summer. I'll be transferring to the Motorola site in Libertyville. Erika took a job at a clinic in Lake Zurich, so we are trying to find someplace inbetween to reside. Neither of us know the area that well, so it is a challenge to scope the lay of the land (not to mention that I currently am still in Champaign!). Fortunately I have some friends at Motorola who are offering to help us find a suitable place to live. I'm excited to be starting a new chapter in my life (or several!) On the downside, it will be tough to leave Champaign, where I have made a lot of close friends that I will miss sorely. Hopefully my new job will give me opportunities to return often and visit!

Now we come to toad. I really wanted to post this pic a while ago, but I just haven't gotten around to it. A few weeks back, we had a large storm system roll through and I retreated to the basement in response to a tornado warning. I walked into my bedroom (my bedroom is downstairs, in case you aren't following), and lo and behold, a toad had fallen into the egress window and was begging to get in out the rain. I took the opportunity to photograph the toad up close in its futile attempts to get back to the surface. Of couse, I couldn't leave him there, so I intended to get him out the next morning after everything had dried up and the storm had passed. The toad had different plans. As I laid in bed that night, the toad (I nicknamed him Skippy) decided it would be fun to keep throwing himself against the window pane. As a result, I was forced to get out of bed, go outside, climb down into the window well, and throw him into the yard. I guess Skippy had SOME survival instinct - he annoyed the heck out of me and as a reward was freed!

Girlfriend caught cheating!

You won't believe what happened this past Sunday. I treated my girlfriend to a trip to the Chicago Field Museum (wait - actually she treated me; I just paid for parking) and wouldn't you know it, she has the audacity to go kissing dinosaurs right in front of me! I mean, those dudes are so old, what does she see in then anyway? I can't imagine them being good kissers - their mouths seemed pretty dry to me. At least I am willing to bet there was no tongue action. OK, really this photo was staged, but I had you for a moment, didn't I?

My take on God

This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak about God's influence in my life up until now and my involvment in the church. It was an exciting time for me to be sharing my past and how my life has changed since becoming a part of Quest. My hope is that someone else listening may get the encouragement to play a more active role in our church body.

On Saturday I was at work which of course is always a bummer. On my way home, I took a detour and shot some pictures since the sun was just starting to set and the air was clear. I found this bulldozer and decided to shoot it as a psuedo-silhouette. I also got a few pictures of some barns and other old buildings. I haven't gone out shooting in a while, so it felt great to be driving around with the windows down and stopping every once in a while to capture a scene. I've noted some other spots that I want to photograph, but I need to wait for the right time of day. I think it can wait until it is a bit warmer, too!

BLOOOOOOO-toooth!

Some people say I love Bluetooth. I work on it at Motorola, and I even have my own unique way of saying it. But I say I love my girlfriend, because she got me a bluetooth mouse for my birthday! So far it has been a dream to use. It automatically reconnects when my computer wakes up, and it even has an on/off switch to save battery (take hint, Microsoft). The mouse is even silver and matches my Powerbook perfectly. I guess Erika DOES listen to me after all...

OK, now that I've given credit when credit is due, let's move on to other events. This past Friday, my roommate, Jon, Celina and I babysat for some kids in Mahomet. I have to admit, it was a blast pretending to be a kid again. I spent a majority of the night as 'Alfred the Robot'. A few of the kids wanted to robots as well, and go on robot adventures. However, one child was bent on calling me a 'Horrible Robot' pretty much the whole night. So us robots ganged up against her, and took her to the robot interrogation room. More silliness ensued, and I have lots of bruises and scratches to remember the night. Note to self: wear full-body armor when playing with kids.

It is finally warming up here, and I can't be too excited about it. My bedroom might now warm up (being that it is in the basement and is consistently 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house). A warmer climate also makes getting up at 6 in the morning to help setup for church that much less of a grueling task. I even took the liberty to take my bike out of storage and tour around the neighborhood. This may have been an overeager reaction though, given that it stormed all weekend and there was still quite a bit of water on the roads. Let's just say I returned home with quite a bit of mud attached to both me and my bike.

Things are heating up at work as well, with lots of political turmoil and impending deadlines. This week alone I spent two late nights trying to keep up with the program's forward marching. The next few weeks should be very interesting in many respects. I'll be sure to keep you posted (to the degree that I can, ye corporate spies). As for the picture, it was taken last fall, but I thought you might want to see where I work!

Milwaukee: Been there, done that

This past weekend my mother, Erika, and I ventured to Milwaukee to hang out with Erika's parents and her sister Karie. It marked the first crossing of parents and needless to say I think the weekend went well! On Saturday afternoon we visited the Milwaukee Art Museum (or MAM, as it is apparently called). It was designed to look like the bow of a ship, and I would say that it is mighty impressive to take in. I tried to capture some of its beauty here in this snapshot of the interior. There were also some colorful ducks milling about in Lake Michigan, but I had to choose only one picture! I'll try to post some of the other images when I have some spare time...

On Saturday evening we saw the play "Beau Jest" at a theatre restaurant. I thought it was a great play and the acting was excellent. On Sunday we celebrated my mom's birthday (any one venture to guess how old she is now? I'm not telling!). I toiled over the hot oven baking her a cake on Thursday night, and brought it all the way to Milwaukee from Champaign just for her. It is a recipe of my sister's, so thank-you Shannon for letting me use it! Now I am back to the daily grind, after taking Monday off to spend some extra time with my girlfriend, who is on a tough rotation right now - surgery. By chance maybe she will only have to work a 12 hour shift one of these days - nah, that's a pipe dream.