December 22, 2007

December 22, 2007

My Illini are playing Mizzou today in the annual “Bragging Rights” basketball game. One of my nephews is a freshman at Missouri this year and got us four tickets thru the university. So I made the drive down to St. Louis without Aimee to see the game. The Illini have won the last seven in this competition but this year could be tougher as Illinois isn’t the solid powerhouse of the past few years.

The St. Louis stadium is divided right down the middle with a sea of orange on one side. Unfortunately I am sitting in the middle of Mizzou country wearing bright orange. The Illini start off dominating but find a way to keep Mizzou in the game even letting them have a four point lead with less than two minutes to go. With my vocal support, the Illini prevail by one point making the long drive back to Chicago bearable. My Mizzou relatives are disappointed again. Unfortunately for them it is only the beginning. The football Illini are also on the rise and begin their winning streak against Mizzou next fall.

December 16, 2007

December 16, 2007

We are knee deep in snow today. No, we are not in Tucson, although the mountains around our apartment are now snow-capped. No, we are in Chicago today. We landed in the middle of a snowstorm at O’Hare yesterday. The single-digit wind chill is giving us second thoughts about returning to the Midwest for the holidays. There is only one way to thicken the blood back up. Get out in it. So after breakfast, Aimee and I put on our hiking boots and took a walk thru the local forest preserve. I guess we will survive but I have to figure out a way to convince my family to spend Christmas in Arizona next year.

November 28, 2007

November 28, 2007

Now that neither Aimee nor I are working, a question we commonly get from friends is, “What do you do all day?” I am sure this is asked with the expectation that we have to be getting bored and ready to return to jobs. Surprising to even us, we often wonder at the end of a day, where did the time go. In some ways it seems like nothing has changed since leaving the workforce. Intent on keeping our minds and bodies active, we spend regular time reading, exercising, attempting to play golf, and hiking. Clearly we don’t hurry from task to task now, I no longer survive on only six hours sleep a night, and we have some time to pursue interests like photography. This question came home to roost though when I was showing my visiting mother-in-law this interesting photo I recently took. Her comment was, “Oh, this must be what retired people do!”