Greetings from a nice evening in Milwaukee....

The weather improved today without raining or storming. Went outside during my lunch break and did not want to go back into my stuffy cube. My work area still smells and feels like a stale library because of the all the archives of financial paperwork behind me... I have an oscillating fan in my cube to help get the air moving...

John went to a local tire shop to see about getting his bad tire plugged. They took a look at it and determined that it was beyond repair. He ended up replacing all four tires on the Jeep. The tire shop gave John a really good deal because he gives them lots of business through the trucking company... He said that the total cost came to $260.00 for four General tires.... not bad...

While watching Judge Judy for the last few months I've noticed that many of the people on the show often use the word "borrowed" incorrectly. They will say "I borrowed him my chain saw" or "Yes, your Honor, I borrowed him my shot gun"... never heard this before... don't understand why they don't use the word loaned... "I loaned him my Furby"... most of the people appear to talk with a drawl ... so makes me think this is a Southern thing... but not sure... regardless - it is irritating to me.... and Judy calls them out on it now and then...

The RV park is still not very busy... A few RV's pulled in and a few pulled out... This evening I noticed that the RV storage lot is almost empty.. I assume this is in preparation for the fair...

Not sure what we are doing this weekend... John's not sure if or when he will need to work this weekend... not good since tomorrow is Friday... I will probably be going to the Bristol Renesance Faire by myself. I would prefer to have John drive me there

Greetings from a humid evening in Milwaukee....

It has been cloudy, warm and extra humid the past few days. It is nothing compared to being in Texas during the summer, but still muggy.... it has not rained in the past few days - so expecting a really nasty storm when it does... seems to be the cycle this year - heat, humidity, storm, repeat....

Had another busy day at work... the first app that has been tested by the "testing group" went to the business line for testing and now they want changes.... I can't really say no... so worked on the fixes they asked for... Went out to lunch with coworkers - ended up at a Five Guys Burgers... not exactly diet food... but was a treat... Had a hamburger with fried mushrooms and fried onions and A1 sauce... Did not have much for breakfast for supper to compensate....

Went to gym at 6:00pm - my normal time and it was not very busy - only six other people working out... Here's another one of RuPaul's remixes that I really like to listen to... RuPaul tells me that I'm a champion... Yeah!!! in it... I believe her



John made it home by 7:45pm, but was not a happy camper.. The driver side front tire on his Jeep Liberty suddenly went flat on the way home... He was not far away from the RV park - so was able to limp it home... He came in and ate the supper I had ready (Lean Cuisine Asian Chicken with Veggie Burger) and then went out and worked on it. It took him 15 minutes to take the flat tire off and replace it with the spare... It was 8:45pm by this time and he decided it would not be easy to find someone to look at it yet tonight... so he will deal with it in the morning. I hope the flat tire is repairable so we don't need to replace both of the front ones.....



This morning at 5:30am Prince decided he was hungry... now... He let us know by repeatedly jumping up on the bed while we were attempting to sleep and meowing in my ear... To discourage him, I just ignore him... don't want to reinforce bad behavior... when I got up at 6:00am I found that he still had food and water in his bowls.. he likes to have his food refreshed by mixing it with new food... he's a very spoiled kitty... It also did not help that one of our neighbors decided to "break camp" at 5:00am in the morning... nothing like the clanging of jacks and running of a diesel truck to start the morning off right...

The RV park is really getting empty. Both of our neighbors are gone along with 90% of the park. They are probably the smart ones... leaving before the fair starts and the rates go up.... We pay by the month - so our rates are the same, but daily and weekly rates go up. A full hookup 50 amp site goes up to $75.00 a night... not cheap...

Not much else going on - going to do some stuff on the computer and watch TV for a bit.... Just want to relax a bit to get mentally prepared for another exciting day of programming....

Greetings from West Allis, WI...

Skies are starting to turn cloudy... looks like it will rain tonight...

Here's a pic I took from the RV park showing the roller coaster that has been assembled in the midway:



John was able to leave work a little earlier then normal - actually walked in the door at 7:00pm.. I asked him to text me when he was on his way so I could have his supper ready when he walked in. I was able to microwave a Lean Cusine chicken fettuccine and a veggie burger in time...

Had a very busy day at work... have several applications in "test mode" and I had three separate testing teams asking for changes to their applications... so did not have a lack of work to do... good for job security and to make the work day go by quickly. For lunch went to Cousin's subs with coworkers. I had a 7" chicken sub on wheat bread and no mayo. My guess is that it was around 550 calories... In the realm of what I like to have for lunchtime calories....

This evening I tried a different routine for supper and working out. I made it home by 4:30pm, grabbed my duffel bag and went to the gym. I usually wait until 6:00pm, but wanted to try going earlier. My theory is that going earlier would not be good because it would be super busy with people getting off of work... Found out that it was not too bad... about the same amount of people there... was able to get changed and onto a TBT machine with no problem... Have been listening to a RuPaul's Champion Album on the iPhone while working out - also have a remix album of the songs from it. The remixes have a great vibe to them that goes well with the motion of the TBT machine:



"Don't be Jealous of my Boogie" is my favorite track on the album - here's one of the remix versions of it:



Tomorrow is a big day for me - it's the season premiere of Project Runway on Lifetime... It's like "TV Crack" for me... Hope they have some fun contestants and unique challenges for them... Will have to get my BeDazzler out so I can do some dazzling while watching... I actually don't use the BeDazzler machine much - it really does not work well... I have a technique where I poke the BeDazzler jewel through the shirt and use the small flat head screwdriver to bend the tines over. Works much better then praying the BeDazzler press works right... I need to stop by the Hobby Lobby and get some more red gems to replace some that fell off my Hello Kitty t-shirt. Need to get it presentable enough to wear at the State Fair....

Not much else going on.... Going to spend some time working on programming project and watch some TV...

Greetings from a nice evening in West Allis, WI...

The temps have been in the lower 80's during the day and the upper 60's in the evening. The evenings cool down enough that the air conditioner turns off for the evening around 9:00pm. The basement air conditioning unit in the moho is located under my side of the bed - so it is nice having it not running... But when it is noisy outside, I like the white noise the AC provides...

I'm waiting for John to come home from work - he said that he was going to be able to come home at 7:00pm, but it is already past 7:30pm. No big deal - he's on my "shit list" at the moment... On Saturday evening he gave Prince a bath and used one of our bath towels to dry him off. After Prince had enough of being dried, John hung the towel back up on the shower enclosure. Then on Sunday morning I took my morning shower like normal, and then proceeded to dry off with a towel full of cat hair... I had kitty fluff all over me... was not amused... Had to hop back in the shower to get the fur off.. and by this time there was not much hot water left... Bad John!!

John worked all day on Sunday - so made sure he knew about the situation when I brought him his lunch.... It gave him a good laugh...

Not much else going on... The State Fair starts a week from this coming Thursday. There's some workers who have started setting up the midway - look like larger roller coaster type rides going up. There's also signs and tents going up. The RV park is not too busy this evening, but I've noticed that there's more people outside lately... probably because of the nicer weather.

Work is going fine. I'm still working on adding a nice web interface to an existing document library. Should have it finished sometime tomorrow...

John just pulled in the RV park - time to greet him at the front door with cheese/crackers and a glass of iced tea.....

Greetings from another humid, probably going to rain, evening in Wisconsin...

John was up and going today by 6:30am... Not sure why he did not sleep in on the only day this week he had an opportunity to is beyond me.... I slept in until 8:30am... then felt guilty and got up... We decided the plan for the day would be to get some breakfast, stop by John's work to make sure everything is ok, and then head over to the new Harley Davidson museum...

We did breakfast at Pegasus.. our usual weekend place... It's close, the food is tasty and we get really good service... so nothing to complain about... After breakfast the stop at John's work place took us 30 minutes. Not much was going on, but John wanted to make sure the dispatchers were doing ok and etc... They were....

Then we headed over the Harley Davidson museum a few miles away on Canal street. This is a newer museum that opened in 2008. The museum is housed in several modern building that have a cool vintage, yet modern vibe to them:



Admission was $16.00 each and then an additional $4.00 for audio tours. The exhibits were well laid out showcasing the history of Harley Davidson and many unique, one-of-a-kind motorcycles. In one case they had the very first motorcycle that was made in a 10 foot x 15 foot shed in the back yard of a friend. The exhibits then went through time showing examples of important motorcycles in their history. Here's some pictures of my favorites:













The museum had a special exhibit on the motorcycle daredevil Evil Knievel in a separate building. It features many items from his career - from motorcycles, fliers, leather outfits, and items that he enforced. They had several videos of his various jumps... some of them he made no problem, but a few he wiped out and had to be scraped up and put in an ambulance. They had a skeleton on display with colored stripes on it that showed where Evil's bones had been fractures through the years. Pretty much everything had been broken at one time or another.... Here's some pics I took:









After checking out exhibits for three hours, John wanted to grab a bit to eat... so we checked out the on-site restaurants - Motor and Cafe Racer. We decided to go with the more upscale Motor and were not disappointed. I had a steak salad that was delicious. The meat was marinated and very tender and went well with the lightly dressed chop salad. We had great service and would dine there again....



After lunch, we headed back to the motor home for an hour or so and then drove down to Hales Corners to pick up our mail. Did not receive anything too exciting, but did receive a notice from the State of Wiscosin that we still owe the $107.00 in sales tax from when we purchased the Jeep in Texas... I'm sure the incompetent dealership messed this up, but probably not worth the time and effort to contact them and try to get it straightened out... They were a big pain to deal with in Texas and now we're in Wisconsin......

Not much else going on... we are spending a quiet evening at home... John just got done giving Prince a bath and now he's all fluffy and soft.. but still sheading like crazy. We've brushed him out several times today, but keep getting lots of hair each time.... Tomorrow John need to be at work by 5:30am... he will probably regret not sleeping in today He will then be working most of the day... I plan on getting laundry done for the week, cleaning house a bit and then work on an iPhone project that I started a few weeks back. The iPhone programming is not exactly easy for me, but I keep working on it.... I'm sure it will come with time....

Greetings from a warm, humid, probably going to rain evening in West Allis, WI

As predicted, we had very nasty come through last evening around 6:00pm. The Milwaukee area received 7 to 11 inches of rain in less then an hour. We were planning on meeting up with Todd and Roger to see a special free preview screening of the movie "The Kids are All Right". John made it home by 6:00pm and ate a quick supper that I had ready for him. It had really started to pour outside and I suggested that we just stay home. John said that we should just go since he got time off of work and etc... So we braved the storm and proceeded to drive to the east side of Milwaukee - about 4 miles away.



The drive to the Downer Theater was an adventure because of all the flooding that was occurring all around us. We drove through some streets that had around a foot of water on them. I think John was having a bit too much fun plowing into the rushing water with his Jeep... Here's a short movie I took with the iPhone 4:



We made it to the theater by 7:00pm - just in time to meet up with Todd and get seated. During the movie we could occasionally hear thunder and lightening outside... The movie was cute - it was about a lesbian family who had two children conceived by artificial insemination. The children are now 15 and 18 and the looked up their birth father. The birth father becomes involved with the family with some interesting consequences. I enjoyed it and recommend it.... If you are in the Milwaukee area it will be playing at the Oriental Theater.

After the movie, it was still raining, but not as hard. We then said our good-byes and proceeded to drive back to the RV park. The traffic around downtown was a real mess because many streets were blocked off and many cars were flooded out and just sitting in the road. It took us almost an hour to get back...

This morning I noticed that our door mat had been washed away again by the rain water. I put it back in place before leaving for work.



Work continues to be going well. Some of the major projects I'm working on are getting towards the end of the testing cycle and will be moving into production in the next few weeks. I received a new project to work on today - redoing a web interface to a document library. It had a web interface, but it was quite outdated and clunky to use... so updating it with a nice table-less css design.

John has tomorrow (Saturday) off of work - a small miracle. That means that I will have to find something to do, since he's not good at entertaining himself. Have a feeling the weather will not be good enough to do the Reconnaissance Fair - but thinking about going to the Harley Davidson museum. They have an exhibit on Evil Knievel that sounds interesting...

Greetings from a bright sunny evening in Wisconsin!

Today the weather has been a bit humid, but overall quite nice... I believe this is the calm before the storm - the next two days are forecast to be stormy. The city of Milwaukee is planning ahead by renting 20 pumps in an attempt to pump storm water into rivers from storm drains. This is being done in an attempt to not overwhelm the sewer system and cause them to dump raw sewage into Lake Michigan. Not a nice thought.....

American Idol is in town doing auditions. This is the second city we have been in while auditons were going on - the last one was in Arlington, TX last summer.... John said he was at work today, but I suspect that he called in sick and then auditioned... I'm on to him

Yesterday the "iPhone 4 fairy" smiled down on us.... John received an email from the Apple store saying that a phone is in stock and ready for us to pickup. John called the store right away to confirm that they have two phones for us... they only had one, but John used his powers of persuasion and convinced them to hold two phones for us... after he waited on hold for 10 minutes.. We were both a bit dubious that they would actually do so... thinking they just told him that to get him off the phone....

John got off of work around 7:00pm and we then hopped in his Jeep and went directly to the Apple store at Mayfair Mall. We were greeted by a 6'3" Apple dude in his early 20's named "John". "John" looked up our reservation, found it and told us to wait for a few minutes while they bring the phones out. John explained that we should have two phone waiting per her earlier phone conversation. We then waited around the store for 5 minutes, then "John" came back to confirm that we wanted two iPhone's. We did... so he told us they would be out in a few more minutes. True to his word - he came back with two iPhone 4's for us...

We then started to get the phone activated and our AT&T accounts adjusted. They have a slick system for doing so - they use their special iPod Touches with the credit card readers to do most of the process. Click these three Accept buttons, sign here with your finger, then sign here... The first phone took about 10 minutes to get going. We ran into a bit of a snag activating the second phone (my phone). "John's" special iPod Touch told him that it was not eligible for the lower subsidized price like the first phone. We questioned this because we purchased both phones at the same time. "John" offered to walk down to the AT&T kiosk in the mall to check with the AT&T people with us. We took him up on the offer. The AT&T guy explained that they only do the early upgrade offer on the first phone in each family plan.. the second phone is not eligible for special price until 2/2011... So we ended up paying more for the second phone.... "John" did a nice job helping us out and we thanked him after everything was done. He went out of his way going down to the AT&T kiosk to help us get answers - something he did not need to do...

We then make it home around 9:30pm (after a quick supper in the food court) and started the process to sync our new phones with iTunes. This process took at least 90 minutes to complete - so I just left it and went to bed. Woke up this morning and everything was copied over and working properly.... It is amazing how simple the process was to get all the music, videos, contacts, photos, ebooks and all of my settings over on the new phone... It went without a glitch....

The new phone is nice.. the screen is very clear, it runs faster - switching between apps is snappy, and takes less time to load them. We have tested out the FaceTime video conferencing and it works well. Right now John is on a FaceTime chat with Rich A. in St. Louis. The video is very clear and not choppy at all - pretty cool. I still need to purchase the iMovie app so I can record and edit movies right on my phone... This weekend I will record and post an edited video....

The purchase of the new iPhones was not cheap and it feels a bit extravagant/excessive. I can rationalize it a bit because I constantly use my iPhone for music, surfing the web, recording diet information, navigation, playing games and messaging with John... The new phone is nice, but does not have as much of the "Wow!" factor that our first iPhone 3gs's had... we are used to them and very spoiled...

Not much else going on... We have a PeaPod grocery order arriving sometime between 8pm and 10pm tonight... Good thing because we are almost out of groceries... John had the last frozen Kashi dinner for supper.. Work has been pleasantly busy - it helps to keep my work days going by quickly. Today I officially started to work on the 2nd major project... a nice milestone...

Not sure what we are doing this weekend... will depend on John's work schedule and he says that it will be a busy next few days for him...... So I will have to figure out something....

Greetings from a warm, humid, feels like it is going to storm evening at the Wisconsin State Fair RV Park.

The park was really busy this past weekend - lots of RV's coming and going at all hours. Tonight it seems much calmer - back down to the normal number of sites occupied. It also seemed like there were more older couples staying at the park then normal... perhaps there was an AARP convention in town?

John had to work on Saturday and then again on Sunday afternoon - so did not leave us much time to do much together. On Saturday evening we did go see the new movie Inception starring Leonardo DiCaprio. We saw it at the Mayfair Mall on their IMAX Digital screen. Going into the movie I was a bit concerned that it was two hours and thirty minutes long... I really liked it - interesting plot, cool special effects - lots of "how did they do that" types of action and imagery. It kept my attention and I was surprised how fast the movie went... was done before I knew it...



Then on Sunday morning John decided the time was right for us to upgrade our iPhone 3gs phones to iPhone 4's. We checked at Best Buy and they did not have any in stock... not a good sign. We then went over to the Apple Store at Mayfair mall and same story... John put his name on their waiting list - the Apple Store guy said it would take 2 or 3 weeks for phones to come in for us... The new phones are "a want" more then "a need", so it is no big deal... but still sucks being all ready to upgrade and then being let down by reality of limited inventory..... It might be a good thing to wait a few weeks to see how Apple's antenna issues shake out. I'm not too concerned - put the phone in a case and there's no issue... and the "phone" capability of the iPhone is a feature that I really don't use very often. We will probably also sign up for their 2 gig a month data plan so we can tether our laptops to phones for occasional remote internet access...

Last week we had a bit of a scare with our Norcold refrigerator. I came home on Thursday evening, opened the fridge door and noticed that it did not feel very cold and smelled a bit musty. I checked the little digital thermometer and it was it was 54 ° inside - not a good sign - should be in the mid 30's. Then opened the freezer compartment and it seemed fine. I called John and he had me go outside and turn on the fans John installed in the back of the fridge that blows on the back of the cooling unit. I checked the temp again in an hour and it did not help much. John came home and then did a quick check of everything. The heating element was warm and everything appeared to be working ok.... his main concern centered around the freezer needing to being defrosted. He did a quick defrost using a small portable space heater and then turned the fridge off for 15 minutes - letting is settle down. Then he turned it back on and in an hour it was working properly... temps back into 30's. John believes that turning off the fridge for 15 minutes probably helped it just as much as defrosting it did... glad it is working well now - since replacing it would cost us around $2,000 to $3,000.00.... We did not loose too much food. Most fit in the freezer and was put back in fridge before it froze....

Sometime this summer I want to go to the Bristol Renaissance Faire for an afternoon. I want to walk around gnawing on a turkey leg, swatting at flies and watch medieval dudes sword fight. John is not as thrilled about going as I am.... Perhaps I will just go by myself while he is working some weekend.... Here's a promotional video:



Not much else going on.... John came home very hungry and in a bad mood.... He's watching TV and giving me the "don't fuck with me tonight" look when I talk to him.... I should sneak up behind him and quickly put my wet tongue in his left ear... I'm sure he would like that... good thing that I can still run further and faster...

Greetings from another calm evening in Milwaukee....

Last evening I was invited over to Todd and Roger's place for supper. They live in a cool older neighborhood in the Brewer's Hill part of Milwaukee - north part of downtown. They prepared a delicious meal that included swordfish on the grill. Don't think I've had swordfish before - it was really good - liked how it was quite meaty and not fishy... It was a fun evening sitting around the table and chatting away over a few bottles of yummy white wine. They had recently went to San Francisco, CA - so got to hear about their adventures out West... I made it home by 9:45pm - just a few minutes before it started to storm....

I'm hoping my gout does not come back as a result of enjoying some wine... my current theory is that wine is different from beer - so it will not cause my uric acid to elevate... I know that beer will cause the gout to come back - but will have to wait and see with the wine... So far so good..

Last night we had a really nasty storm come through. There were thunderstorm and tornado watches out all over the place and I could see why. Had lots of rain and wind. The RV park sloped downhill a bit and we are at the lower part of the parking lot. As a result of all the rain water coming down towards us - our door mat was washed away... I found it 8 feet away sitting against some poles. Our mat is made out of heavy plastic cord that is woven together - not exactly light... So there must have been at least 6 inches of water at one point - probably more.... On the way to work this morning there was several large limbs on the frontage road - more proof that the storm was really nasty....

Work is going fine. The very first large project I worked on is still in the process of being tested. It seems like the testers are getting more into "office politics" this week - they make sure several managers know when they find something wrong... they have not done this in the past... so trying to figure out their motivation... Have a process in place from them to record any bugs they find and then I work on fixing them.... but it seems like they are getting bored with the process....

Not much else going on... gym was good... did level 2 on the intermediate setting... my legs can really feel it... did not tan... will probably tan again tomorrow evening.... John was home when I arrive back at the MoHo - it was nice to see him get home a bit earlier then normal....

Greetings from a quiet evening at the State Fair RV Park.

There's not many comings and goings on at the park... We've not had anyone in the spot next to us on the passenger side for a week... Having someone next to us helps to block some of the street noise...

My trip to see my parents in Thomson, IL went well. When I arrived on Friday evening, I help them get the farm produce picked, sorted, cleaned and packaged in preparation for the farmers market in Clinton, IA. On Saturday morning I then helped them at the farmer's market in the morning. Here's a few pic's I took:







I then spent the remainder of Saturday afternoon helping out with selling sweet corn at the farm. Dad would pick the corn and then I would sort it, check it for worms, and then bag it. Put 12 ears in each plastic bag - so when customers purchased it, can then just grab one bag per dozen. They were quite busy - had to hustle a bit to keep up with customers coming in.... Then on Saturday evening we went into Thomson, IL for supper at Dusty's Pizza Plus. I had their small spaghetti plate - was good. I really liked their homemade break - tasted like Kings Hawaiian. Not the best diet meal, but working all day helped to offset the damage...



Then on Sunday I helped out with sweet corn again and watched the farm while they were away. They went to see the musical Oklahoma! at the Timber Lake Playhouse - with tickets I purchased for my dad as Father's Day gift. While they were away it started to rain and storm - so I closed us the hoop houses up just in case it started to get stormy... so much fun... By 3:00pm I sold the last of the sweet corn, so then I spent the next few hours running out in the rain to tell customers we are sold out.....

Parents made it back to the farm by 6:00pm. They had a fun time at the musical - said it was only the third time they have been there.... I then hit the road by 6:30pm and made it back to Milwaukee by 8:30pm.... I was really tired and was in bed by 9:45pm.....

John is a bit of a "dirty boy" over the weekend - left lots of empty cups, dishes and socks around the MoHo. He had to work most of the day Saturday and some on Sunday - so he was not around much... and the RV reflected it. After work on Monday, I cleaned up, doing dishes and 10 loads of laundry. Did not work out because I didn't think I would have enough time to do both...

Tonight I went back to my normal schedule and worked out. I'm starting to do the intermediate levels on the TBT machine. The intermediate level is quite difficult - even on level 1. There's more "mountain peaks" that you have to go up - four of them now, instead of two... Will be challenging to go up in levels.... After working out I did the tanning bed for 20 minutes. The plastic surface of the tanning bed feels really cold in the air conditioned room when I first lay on it... Takes a minute or so to warm up... I have a pretty decent "all over" tan - but still have some areas that are not as dark as others. I'm attempting to lay on my sides more to see if it helps.... instead of just laying on my back....

I've started to watch Big Brother on CBS. The only reason I'm watching is because one of my favorite podcasters - Ragan Fox is in it. Ragan has been doing the Fox in the City podcast on and off for years and I like his sense of humor and take on politics. It is really cool being able to see him on TV now.... He comes across as being more of a dork on TV then in his podcasts..... Not sure what is up with the bow tie.. probably part of some devious plan for Big Brother house domination....

Greetings from West Allis, WI...

Quick posting tonight... just got back from watching the Despicable Me movie and it is almost my bed time...

I liked the movie - had some really funny moments and disco music. The computer animation and 3d effects were amazing. I saw John giggle his way through the movie, but he is not admitting to liking it - said he was glad we did not pay to see it.... I was surprised how Hello Kitty meets Barbie meets Hunchback of Notre-Dame the movie ended up being - but I like that.... The iPhone app that goes along with the credits at the end of the movie was really funny... Not going to spoil the movie and talk about the plot.... Now I want to get a pink space suit....

My work day was fine - did a short presentation of jQuery to group of developers - it turned out fine.... Once I figured out where "Conference Room L" was. I found K, M & N, but no L... coworker came and found me..... jQuery is a script library that acts as an extension to JavaScript. I really like using it - and I received an ok to use it on one of my projects, just as long as I did the short presentation so the other developers know what I'm doing....

John had a long work day - he left the MoHo at 6:30am for early meeting, then drove down to the Chicago area, then back to Milwaukee... Good thing I came up with the movie tickets... he left a bit early to see it with me... I told him my "other boyfriend" would be disappointed (don't really have one... but it sounded good...)...

Some good news came today for GLBT right - some parts of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) have been declared unconstitutional by United States district court judge Joseph Louis Tauro. President Barack Obama is currently reviewing the decision and has not yet decided whether to appeal the decision. I'm no expert on DOMA, but the best concise write up about it I found is on Wikipedia: Deference of Marriage Act. This could potentially be very good news for gay marriage and GLBT right... but I'm not exactly sure how it will play out with individual states having their own state constitutional amendments defining marriage and etc... It will be interesting to follow the news coverage on this....

Not much else going on - I'm heading to bed... my eyes are tried and Prince just told me that he is ready to cuddle up with us....

Greetings from a stormy day in Milwaukee....

Around 3:00pm today a storm cell moved through the area. I was at work and normally I can't tell if it is raining outside because of the high ceiling, but this storm was really nasty and loud. Could really hear the rain coming down hard... The power went out a few seconds putting my cube into complete darkness - long enough to make sure my computer went off. It was kinda funny to hear lots of groans and complaints from coworkers who lost what they were working on... You would think with a nasty storm going on you would quickly save your work (like I did), but guess not.... The storm lasted 45 minutes and now it is just raining out..

The drive home was actually not too bad - did not take any longer then the usual 20 minutes.

I'm still laughing at Bernie's comment about the "monkey piss" wine... I actually do like the cheap fruity wines... was giving John a hard time about purchasing it to cook with... He used it in the wild mushroom risotto last weekend... Boone's Farm and Sutter Home wines remind me of wine coolers....

I ended up going to the gym 30 minutes later then normal because it started to rain hard again at my normal time. I hit a milestone on the TBT machine - I finally did it at the highest level on the "Beginner" setting - level 20. So now I'm going to try and work through all 20 levels on the "Intermediate" level - not sure what changes - I assume it is more difficult.. After the gym I stopped by Outpost Foods to pick up a few items - granola cereal, curry chicken salad and some frozen dinners. Also picked up some cherries and cantaloupe - they are both in season now - so the prices are decent and they are really full of flavor.

Tomorrow evening we are going to a "special preview" of the animated movie "Despicable Me". John believes he will get off of work in time to see it with me. I obtained free tickets to see it from Best Buy - one of the perks of their award card.... I don't know much about the movie except it has the voice of Steve Carell as the main character. I like seeing movies where I don't really know the plot or what to expect....



Doing laundry in the combo washer/dryer tonight - just my gym clothes. John just does not understand why I need to wash them every two days... I threw one of my sweaty work out shirts at him - he understands now.... I think that if you are going to haul your self into the gym - you should have nice workout clothes, shoes, leg warmers that are clean and look nice.... and perhaps lightly bedazzled.... I'm really hoping nothing goes wrong with the washer/dryer while John is here... he would really be unhappy. If it breaks down when he is not around - I can just close the cabinet door in front of it and pretend like I don't know why it is full of water and not working.... while trying not to giggle....

This weekend I'm heading to my parents farm in Thomson, IL. Sunday is the performance of Oklahoma! that I got Dad tickets for - so want to watch the farm for them while they are away... Plus it will be nice to see them again... last time was earlier this Spring....