Life Update

It's been some time since I actually did any kind of life update post. If you're not into that kind of thing, move along. If so, read on.

*I spent all of last week spring breaking. I used to spend spring break down at Hohokam park watching the Cubs in spring training. This spring break consisted of hanging with TLO and spending a couple hours each day in my office. Not quite as exciting ("exciting" translates to: shitfaced for a week), but much more relaxing. Most of my office time consisted of working on the much discussed Battlestar Galactica article. The piece got rejected--AGAIN--as part of an edited collection. Maybe I'm not articulating the basic argument well enough? Regardless, I've decided to write the whole damn piece and start the journal process. While I don't have the time for a marathon writing session, I'm trying to spend an hour a day putting all relevant ideas/quotes into outline form. Once the extensive outline is complete, I'll find some time to crank out the formal piece. The last week of May looks promising. Tentative deadline: June 1.

*STK and I took a few minutes out of our monthly shopping spree to gaze longingly at the 2007 Honda Civic. My old Civic has almost 170,000 miles on it; sooner or later, we'll need a new commuter car for STK. She puts 100 miles a day on the car and we want something that's comfortable, safe, and fuel conscious. The new Civic is all of those things. We glanced at a couple used models but decided that saving a couple thousand bucks over the life of a loan isn't worth the risk (not knowing the maintenance schedule of the vehicle, the already piling up mileage, etc.). We'd love to go with the hybrid but can't justify the additional $8000. Maybe the next time we're in the market for new wheels. We're targeting late this summer as the "buy" date.

*STK and I both received significant raises for next year (that's in addition to our usual step advancement for each year), hence the new car talk. Hard work does pay off. Eventually, it does pay off. Graduate degrees certainly don't hurt the situation either.

*I'm running outdoors, with the permission of my physical therapist, in the gorgeous 70 degree weather. Can't get enough of this beautiful weather. We opened all the windows in the house this morning and gave the place the first good airing out of the spring.

*The ankle continues to hurt. Not as bad as way back when, but it's still an annoyance. After a brief consult with PT, I'm going to continue increasing mileage/time over the next few weeks and see what happens. I'm up to 30 minutes every other day. If the pain continues, custom orthotics and acupuncture are on the horizon. If those treatments--coupled with my "there is no pain" mind over matter meditations--fail, surgery is next.

*We had dinner tonight with a young couple here in town who just had a baby. This is significant for two reasons. First, we don't hang with that many people who have infants and careers. It’s nice to have a place that’s TLO friendly. Second, since moving to SMC we haven’t really made any friends and we miss that part of our lives in Colorado. Dr. OneDink and J are awesome--we spent time with them on Saturday--but we have no idea if they’ll be here beyond the 2007-2008 school year. So, cool kid friendly dinner with a main course of newborn baby stories and a side dish of school talk.

*STK faces her busiest week of the school year. Between conferences, a special art program, and art show, she’ll be getting home late three nights this week. TLO and I on our own! Bring on the ice cream and chocolate for dinner!

We now return to our periodic posting.