HA! I was just reading through my past blogs in the archives, starting with the oldest. As I scolled down through probably the first, I noticed that I said that I lived in a small town in southern Illinois, only 6 miles south of Chicago. Now that's funny. I meant to say only 6 HOURS (320 mi.) south of Chicago. That of couse is a conservative estimate according to a conservative driving time. I usually make the trip in about 4 1/2 hours. That's nary a bathroom break, fully gassed up for the trip, food already packed, y'know. You could turn it into a 6 hour trip, but that's not my style, to Emily's displeasure. Back in the day (the early sixties) when Interstate 57 was brand new, and only went for stretches here and there, not yet fully completed, my Dad said that he could make the trip in 3 1/2. That's not totally unbelievable when you hear him tell the story. He averaged a little less than 100mph, and would have averaged higher if he had not had to divert over to IL State Hwy 37 where I 57 was still under construction, and where he was able to drive solely on I 57, there was almost no traffic to speak of, nor was it really policed by any law enforcement officials. Anyway, I guess this turned from correction to history lesson, but I easily digress.

children. how amusing one's day is when spent with a child. i was working as usual (while doing laundry, of course) when emily called from work. i was chatting with her when i thought that i heard rohan calling from the back of the house. she coincidentally got a phone call, so i let her go and went to check if there was anything that i needed to attend to. sure enough, i heard rohan saying,"oh my gosh, oh my gosh! daaaaaaddy, where are you?!" as i neared the bathroom, i spied a three-year-old, with his underwear around his ankles, trying to twist, so he could examine his rear, which was speared up past his waist with poop. yeah, that was fun to clean up. sometimes people wonder why my sense of humor tends to get slightly raunchy, with no holds barred ----when you're a parent, life gets raunchy, with no holds barred. you never know what you're going to get into when your child starts saying,"oh my gosh, oh my gosh!"

It's been a year since I changed the look of my blog page, so that's why you're looking at something totally unfamiliar. Of course, instead of working on this, I should have been doing real work, so after I post this, I'm going to get back to business. Oh well...it was fun!

WOW!!! I haven't blogged here since Thanksgiving?!??!?! I swear, I'm not that lame. Most of my time (other than time spent on work and family) has been dedicated to my band's website, which has another blog of mine incorporated within the front page, so that's where I've been.

We took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's tonight. They had a great time. My major observation of the night was that the Skee-ball game that I grew up loving were not the huge ticket generators that I thought they were. Even at your luckiest, you might get three or four tickets. Yet right around the corner were several other types of games (if you can even call them that) that just spit tickets at you for doing nothing other than pushing a button, stopping strobing lights on a numeric amount, sort of like playing roulette. Once Emily discovered these games, we were swimming in tickets. When I was younger, my brother and I could never combine for more than fifty tickets. Do you know what our take was tonight? Just guess...C'mon....

266 tickets. And I know that probably doesn't even compare to some of the other patrons. We saw guys walking around holding bricks of tickets. Just amazing. What's even more amazing is that I'm typing about this. Oh well...simple minds, simple pleasures.