With roughly a week and a half of our respective summer breaks coinciding, it would've been downright criminal for Lauren and I not to have gone camping. So with her parents car and probably far more stuff then we'd need to survive a week, let alone our two nights, (despite all the Colorado Mountain Man in me, there's no denying that we're City ( Read more... )

I've been to plenty of ethnic festival around the city where folks from every part of town and beyond show up, and regardless of what language they speak, everyone is having a terrific time. Ukrainian Fest was not one of them. I'm not sure if it's because Ukrainian Village is so far off the tourist maps or what, but Lauren & I were quite possibly ( Read more... )

What's been going on? I'm glad you ask! Lots ( Read more... )

Lauren's done with Boards Step 1 Test-from-Hell, and I'm done with my nowhere near as hellish first quarter of classes, so we actually have time to DO stuff, which is a little odd and a whole lot of wonderful. As easy as it is to complain about the extremes of midwest weather, Chicago Summer is pretty damn nice. We made it up to the burbs last ( Read more... )

The writer's guilt has been biting me lately as I see on my journal that I can go back nearly a full 7 months in entries on a single page, meaning that fun as it is to reminisce about Summer '09, I should really be writing more. So. Here I am less then 24 hours before I start grad school in earnest. Although by some measures, I have already started ( Read more... )

Today would've been quite an enjoyable day even without the big news I received in late afternoon. While between some in-school field trips and the weekly tutoring I've gotten to do some fun things with 826Chi, (aka "The Boring Store") nothing can quite top their "typical" in-house bookmaking field trips for visiting elementary schools. I can't ( Read more... )

INTRODUCTION
I've been a bad bad writer as far as keeping things updated here, and I feel more and more like the reason behind this is exactly what I mentioned previously, and since that's really a super positive thing, it's been harder and harder to motivate myself to write here. But now, thanks to the power of procrastination (my grad school ( Read more... )

Apparently, THIS is the aformentioned "Olympic Hymn." And apparently, it was performed in English at the opening ceremony, but you sure could've fooled me.

Ancient Immortal Spirit, chaste Father
Descending appear with Thy presence
Illuminate Thine Earth and the Heavens.

Shine upon noble endeavors wrought
at the Games on Track and in the Field.
Crown ( Read more... )

Some thoughts on the Opening Ceremony, which I've gotta say, might not have displayed the Epic Mass Human Coordination of Beijing 08's, but was nonetheless quite impressive and pretty in it's own right.

- For as big a deal as they're making that these games are so "First Nations friendly," I do wonder just how much of what they're doing ( Read more... )

 He really liked Key West. It’s starting to sound pretty damn good to me, too.