I seem to have rubbed poison ivy or poison oak in my eyes again. Good times. There's a little patch on my forearm.

I'm not sure where I got it this time. The only place that makes any sense is when I mowed the yard the Monday before last. I'm going to see if I can make it without getting a prescription from the doctor.

I'm glad to be back home; I was in Phoenix last week for work and the travel was exceedingly difficult.

My flight out of Bloomington (BMI) was canceled Sunday night, so my wife drove me to Chicago (ORD) early Monday morning, so I got a late start Monday. I worked late every day to make up for lost time.

Then on Friday, my flight leaving Phoenix (PHX) was two hours delayed because of a mechanical failure, and, once we landed in Chicago, I ran non-stop to the Bloomington gate because the monitors said that the flight was leaving on time (i.e. 15 minutes). My lungs were on fire by the time I got to my gate, only to be told that the Bloomington flight was delayed because of a late arrival of its plane! I wouldn't have run all that way if the monitor had been updated ... sheesh!

Bloomington airport is the slowest when it comes to retrieving checked bags. It takes about 20 minutes for the claim belt to start moving, and then the bags slowly start populating it. My bag didn't show up by the time the claim belt stopped moving, so I and a handful of other weary travelers head for the exit, figuring we would have to call the airport in the morning (because it appears like everything is shut down, everything is dark and not an employee in sight). But my wife decided to hunt someone down to find out who to call in the morning. Not only did she find an employee behind the unlit counter (hiding in the dark?), but they were able to locate my bag with the claim ticket and in only a few minutes brought it to her from the back.

I was very happy to have made it home, albeit very late Friday night.

Friday night Emilie, Jantina and I went to Springfield to watch "Bourne Ultimatum." Earlier in the week we watched the previous two movies for a refresher and I'm glad we did! It made the movie that much more enjoyable. We ate at our place before heading out, and Jantina ran a couple of errands before the show started at PetSmart and Hobby Lobby. After the show, we met up with Travis and Grace at Starbucks and enjoyed the evening sitting outside sipping frappacinos.

We got home late Friday so I ended up sleeping in on Saturday and just hanging around the house all day. Jantina started building an agility course for Sassy, and we were able to start teaching jump and weave for the hurdle and slalom in the afternoon. She's doing pretty good so far!



Sunday after church Kallie and Jantina played some XBOX (Lego Star Wars II) and I had coffee with David. For dinner, Jantina, David and I took a quick trip to Lonestar in Bloomington since David had a gift card that he wanted to use there. We also grabbed a Cold Stone Creamery on the way home. Coffee Lovers Only is my favorite flavor there.

This weekend I played around with some web development stuff (css and photoshop) its been a long time since I've done that. Nothing too fancy though, just going for functionality right now.

We also had a black-belt clinic, Emilie and I had a great time learning some new stuff and spending time with everyone. Because of the expected rain, we ended up inside at the rec instead of Postville Park.

Sunday we spent most of the afternoon after church at Mom's visiting family. My uncle Jim is in town from Arizona (and his daughter from Colorado) so most of my Mom's side of the family was over to visit.

I also watched a few movies.. Two for the Money for the first time, but also re-watched Star Trek Nemesis and Bourne Identity.

The heat nearly caused some major problems at the third annual Jax Hat ultimate (Frisbee) hat draw tournament Saturday. But thanks to a storm, the high temperature dropped.

By the third game of the day, the heat was getting to me, and I'm sure a lot of people. After that game, I had scheduled a lunch break, so we had a chance to cool down there. When we came back, a storm blew in just north of us, so we got a tiny sprinkle of rain, but the clouds blocked out harsh sun and saved us. As my team finished its last game, a second storm came in and did rain on us pretty heavy.

All the feedback I got was pretty good. Several people were late and that caused us to start the first round a bit late. A lot of people had problems getting back from lunch in time to start according to schedule, so we pushed games back 30 minutes at that point.

The T-shirts came out pretty good, except two of the colors that we picked -- violet and heather indego -- ended up being pretty close and when those two teams played, one of the teams had to wear white instead.

There are lots of pics on Facebook and here.