On OCTOBER 19, my aunt and I went back to Michigan for a long weekend, to visit an old chat friend. The timing was perfect, as the leaves were at their most colorful. Below is a picture I snapped outside an apple orchard. It's just on the outside of Manchester. They had pumpkins, apples (bagged and taffy), donuts, and cider. Many apple orchards offer home-made apples, although I've never learned why. These were AWESOME!

On the way into Manchester, right on the edge of town, there's a yard with a tree, that took what must have been left of a branch and maybe carved an arm and fist into the wood. It's also been painted. This was the best picture I was able to get, Monday morning as we were leaving town. In the fall and winter, the sun isn't at a very good angle to get a nice picture of it. By afternoon, the arm is completely shaded, and a good picture, even with flash, is impossible. It's just something we always look for (along with a llama farm) as we head South on M-52 into Manchester.

We had a very nice visit. We did try to get together with Deb while we were in Michigan, but unfortunately it didn't work out. We've decided that next time we go to Michigan, we will go a day earlier, so we have a whole day to spend with Deb. And perhaps in the Spring, I'll take a day and go visit Deb myself (and maybe meet Kerry there????)

I'll be picking up some pictures I was getting developed (to use up the film I started in August), so I can scan those pictures soon and get some posted in the near future.

***Editors Note: Thanks Styx, for noticing I said November instead of October. No, I didn't go forward in time, I just wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing when I typed it last night.

Here's a picture I took a couple days ago of the sunset by my apartment. The clouds weren't really that red, they were more pink or mauve. But this is what I got using my digital camera. Pretty cool, huh??

I'm home from my long weekend in Michigan. I had a nice time visiting my friend, but was disappointed in not being able to see another friend. Things just didn't work out like I'd hoped, and I'm not sure what the future will bring.

The colors were beautiful the whole way there, we were told the fall colors are at their peak about now in Michigan, so our timing was perfect. I didn't get the opportunity to get many pictures, we just never seemed to be in a good spot to stop and have me get out to snap a picture. I got one picture while we were at an apple orchard getting cider, apples, donuts, and taffy apples. I'll post that as soon as I get a chance to load the pictures from my camera to my computer.

Right now my knee and back are killing me. I don't know what I did to my back, although it could have been the storage cabinet that I had to push up a flight of stairs on Saturday. Although, my back wasn't bothering me yesterday, only today. My knee though, has been coming on all weekend, the more I went up and down those damn stairs the more it bothered me. I took a couple Aleve earlier, but unless I go elevate it, it won't feel any better. I'll do that when I go watch Journeyman in an hour.

I had a nice weekend, but I'm glad to be home.

Another quiet weekend here. I got caught up on all my tv shows this weekend, and watched two disappointing football games. Oh well. This Friday I will be making another trip to Michigan, to visit a couple friends.

The leaves are finaly starting to turn. Some trees have already changed and the branches are now bare, others are just barely starting to show color. Using the film in my camera that I originaly loaded the end of August for the eclipse, I'm attempting to take several photos over a period of may be a few weeks to show the slow color change here. I think I only have about 4 pictures left on the roll of film, so anything I want to take after that's done will be using my digital camera.

Time to go check the weather for tomorrow so I know how warm I need to dress for work. Have a great week!

So much for trying to support a sports team. Every time I do, they lose. I tried to suppor the Cubs, they were swept in the Divisional Series against Arizona. I tried to support the Cowboys, they are being humiliated by a 1-3 Buffalo team. So I'm back to neutral colors, supporting no team. I give up.

It's late on a Sunday night, I've been watching football all evening, we've had summer-like temperatures all weekend, and I have to work tomorrow, lol.

The Bears just went ahead for the first time, with 2 minutes left. GO BEARS! Tomorrow night is the Cowboys game against Buffalo, so I will be watching that for sure! Another late night for me, lol.

Today, after Kerry's stream, I went out to see my aunt. I haven't seen her for at least a month, as she was sick for a few weeks, and then did too much last Saturday and needed to rest on Sunday. I try to go see her every Sunday, helping her clean her floors (I vaccum, she mops) doing anything else around her condo her son hasn't done, she feeds me, and we go see a movie. Today was no different. We did the floors, ate lunch, went to see The Seeker, I helped her clean her sliding glass doors, I attempted to hook up her new dvd recorder, and I brought in her garden hose for the winter. The only thing I didn't get done was to clean her spare bathtub. She has arthritis in both shoulders, can't bend over to clean the bathtub, and her son won't ever do it. So I do what I can to help.

And the Bears just won the game, intercepting the ball in the endzone as time expires. Wooooooooooo Hoooooooooooooo

So now that the game is over, I can go to bed, lol. Have a great week!

Well, game 1 didn't go as I'd hoped. Cubs lose 3-1. Without reading any articles or watching any post game interviews, I have a few thoughts on the game. Those not interested in baseball can just skip today's post, lol.

1. Carlos Zambrano pitched a GREAT game. He only allowed one run in 6 innings.

2. Since Carlos was pitching well, why bring him out? Confidence in the relievers? Concern for his arm since he'll be pitching again on only 3 days rest?

3. Why is Lou Piniella only going with three starting pitchers for this series? Carlos Zambrano, Rich Hill, and Ted Lilly. It sure puts a lot of pressure on the middle and late relievers to be perfect.

4. All the Cubs, with the exception of Carlos, looked flat last night. Ramirez almost looks like he's not trying when he's at the plate. He's reaching for pitches that he would not normally bother with. Derrick Lee looks like his back is still bothering him. Every time he's at the plate, he's arching back like he's trying to stretch it out. That HAS to be affecting his swing. Soriano, who is typically a first pitch batter, is still being bothered by his sore quad. That affects not just his fielding, but his base running too. In the 6th inning, the Cubs had the bases loaded...THE BASES LOADED, only got ONE run in, and left 3 men on base. They have to be better at advancing the base runners or they'll have no chance tonight or Saturday when they come back to Chicago for game 3.

5. Carlos Marmol pitched the 7th inning in relief of Carlos Zambrano. Marmol had been great, not allowing a run in the last 28 innings he's pitched. What does he do? Gives up two runs to give the D'backs the lead for good.

I really was hoping for more from the Cubs last night. Hopefully they got whatever was bugging them last night out of their system and can come back tonight to tie the series at 1 each.

Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? Cubs are gonna win today!

Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today!

Game 1 of the National League Division Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Arizona Diamondbacks. The game starts at 9pm CDT, so I will be bleary-eyed tomorrow morning. Carlos "Big Z" Zambrano is pitching for the Cubs tonight, he's pitched better away from home all season, so hopefully he'll continue that trend and give the Cubs a chance to go up 1-0.

I know all you hockey fans and red sox fans and basically non-sports fans could care less about the Cubs, but StygianMuse and I LOVE the Cubs and we'll support them until they win the World Series. And just so everyone knows, it's been 99 years since the Cubs last won the World Series. 99 YEARS!!!

Go Cubbies!!!!!!!!!!

Oh good, since you liked the pictures I posted of my apartment, now I don't have to post any of the other pictures of my apartment that I took. Not in the mood to post anyway, didn't have a good day at work, not in the mood to talk to anyone tonight.

Wow, 12 days since my last post. Sorry for the lack of activity here, but I just haven't felt like posting much, not a lot has been happening. I've had new pictures to load that I took just over a week ago, but never felt like moving them from my camera until now.

My half sister and her husband were passing through Chicago last Friday, so they took me out to dinner, and I got the chance to show them my apartment. Of course, that meant getting all my "fall" cleaning done to make the place presentable, lol. Once it was clean, I took pictures of my apartment. Although it was the middle of the afternoon, because of how my apartment is situated, I don't get a lot of direct sunlight. Therefore, after moving the pictures to my computer, I had to lighten some of them up. I don't even remember if I used the flash or not, I'm sure I probably would have, but who knows or remembers at this point.

So, to get everything started, here's what you see when you walk into my apartment starting out looking straight and turning to the right:

Yes, that's a fireplace by the sliding glass door

As you can see, I have a lot of cd's, lol

My tiny kitchen, perfect for one person

Here are the two pictures I took this afternoon of the Rosemont Water Tower about a block away from my building. I can stand at our windows and look out on it. These pictures were taken from the top of the parking garage behind our building, so I could get an unobstructed view of the tower. You can also go to this link to see the article on the Chicago CBS website about the water tower being named "Tank of the Year."

I was right, I did have a couple pictures that I hadn't posted yet. These next two pictures are the view from my balcony. If the sun is shining enough tomorrow, I'll try to go outside at lunch and get a better picture of the water tower. It's actually painted quite nicely.





It's been quiet here the last couple weeks. Just working and watching football on Saturdays (college) and Sundays (pro), baseball at night (GO CUBS!!!) As I type this, they just tied the score in the bottom of the 9th.

I signed a new lease for this apartment, so I'll be here for another year. I jokingly asked the customer relations gal, Dawn, what their policy was on murder...if they would terminate my lease if I were to murder my upstairs neighbors. I think for just a second, she thought I was serious, lmao. If they don't stop doing laundry and vacuuming at midnight on Sunday nights, I might just threaten them with bodily harm.

Hopefully more tomorrow!

Not 5 seconds after I clicked publish, those Cubbies won the game!!!

Go Cubs go...go Cubs go...hey Chicago what do ya say, Cubs are gonna win today!

Here's the last (I think) of the pictures I took on my walk a couple weeks ago.

School where I vote

This is actually a backyard. There used to be a German Shepherd in the backyard that would bark anytime someone walked by. No dog now, but the yard is still overgrown.

Here's a charlie (squirrel) climbing up a tree

I also saw a couple pictures on my computer that I'm not sure if I posted for you. Tomorrow night, I'll go back through blogger and see if I've posted them. If so, then I'm out of pictures for now, unless I find something else to take pictures of. Perhaps the water tower I mentioned in the picture of the plane landing by my office building.

Playing Ketchup!

Ok, so maybe that should have said "catch up," but do any of you really mind? I had to open another window to see when the last time I posted was, because I couldn't remember! So my last post was last Tuesday, right before I went to Indianapolis for the day on a business trip.

My trips to Indianapolis always seem to be interesting, lol. I started out by having my alarm JAR me awake at 4AM. I drove to the airport, parked, went to my gate (I had already printed my boarding pass Tuesday night) for the 7AM flight. Amazingly enough, it left on time. And...it arrived EARLY! Can you imagine? A domestic U.S. flight actually leaving on time and arriving early? It so rarely happens these days, it's shock when it does happen. Since my salesman was just leaving the hotel (he wasn't expecting me to be 20 minutes early), and wouldn't be there for about 10 minutes, I perused a book store for a few minutes then went and sat outside. This was a day trip, so all I had with me was my itty bitty purse and a notebook.

The salesman, John, arrived, and off we went to visit the customer. This customer is one I've gone to visit once a year since 2004 when I started working at Metal One. The customer is a stamping facility that makes the tops, sides, bottoms and ends for caskets. They have about 60 employees, and she is in charge of most of them. They are located on the border of Indiana and Ohio, about an hour and a half outside of Indianapolis. We chatted for a few minutes, then headed off to an early lunch.

Afterwards, John and I headed back to Indianapolis, for the second part of the trip. We were going to the warehouse where we store coils for that casket stamper, to do physical inventory. We needed to go out and physically account for every coil the warehouse said was there, and make sure it matched what we said should be there. It was about 95F that day, and at least that hot in the warehouse, plus we had to wear hard hats while out there (you never know when a coil might drop on your head, lmao.) Everything went smoothly, no missing coils, no extra coils, everything matched up, just as I figured it would. This place is really good about that stuff. I love dealing with them.

My flight home was supposed to leave at 6:31pm, arriving home at 6:41pm. No, it's not a 10 minute flight, lmao. There's an hour time difference between Chicago and Indianapolis, so the flight home was actually going to be an hour and 10 minutes. Note I said "supposed to leave at 6:31?" Yeah, that would be because it didn't actually leave then. First it got delayed to 6:47pm, then to 7:12pm, then to 8:21pm, then to 8:55pm. Argh! We did finally board by 8:55pm, but I'd had no dinner because by the time I was hungry enough to think about it, it was too late to go get anything. And the only place to really get anything was at a little restaurant in our concourse. Anything else, I would have to go back through security to walk to the other end of the airport. No thanks, I just wanted to get home by then. It probably took us another 15 minutes to pull back from the gate, then another 15 minutes to actually get out to the runway and take off. Fortunately, they were able to get a more direct route to Chicago, so the flight was only 30 minutes. I still didn't land until about 9pm, then had to walk out to my car and drive home.

I walked in the door at 10pm. I put 2 pieces of bread in the toaster, put some peanut butter on them, ate that while I got ready for bed, and was in bed asleep by 10:30, lol. I was exhausted the next day at work, and again on Friday. But I got all caught up on Saturday. After my stream Friday night, I was in bed at 11:30pm, slept until 8:30 when I moved from my bed to the loveseat in the living room cause it was darker there, then slept until 11:20am. I love love LOVE getting 12 hours of sleep, lmao.

I did pretty much nothing, nada, zip all weekend. My aunt is still trying to get over bacterial pneumonia, so I stayed home again on Sunday. Yay! I got to watch a full day of FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!! Too bad Da Bears sucked, but Dallas won big! Woooo hoooooo!

So that brings us up to today/tonight...it's raining, cool, fall like temps (where's summer go?) and I can go back to posting more pictures, cause I'm sure AK will want to see some more very soon, lmao. (Do I have any more pictures to post? Hmmmm, I'll have to look.)

Here's some more photos of where I live. These are pictures of the pond/lake that is at the one end of the golf course. While taking these pictures, I had to make sure I stayed out of the way of three golfers, who weren't too happy I was wandering around the course while they were trying to play through, lol.

You can just barely see part of the road on the left, that takes you out to the main road. On the other side of the pond/lake are townhouses. One just out of the picture was on fire several weeks ago. Last I saw there was still a chain link fence around the building so people wouldn't go in the building.


Here's a little bridge for the golf carts to cross to get over the water. You can see how green the grass is, and it's all done by natural watering this summer! Normally on Aug 26 the grass isn't this green. It's normally all burnt up, as someone I know likes to say.

Another view of part of the lake/pond.

As you can see, we have plenty of water, but not too many mosquitos for as wet as it's been.

And last but not least, the view you get if you go out for a walk on a Sunday afternoon before the garbage men have a chance to come Monday morning and empty the dumpsters, lmao.

It's a slow holiday weekend here in the U.S. and Canada. I've just been lazing around, reading and watching t.v. Here's some more pictures I took last weekend on my walk around my neighborhood.

Beautiful blue sky!

Golf Course around my complex

Another part of the golf course

Anyone got $429,000 sitting around?

Here's more photos of where I live.

Sign for my complex

View of my street looking South

The pool across the street from me.

The city has been working up one side of my entire street, putting in new light poles. Before they were spaced quite a distance apart, leaving a lot of unlit areas to drive past. Now, at least on one side, there are about three times as many lights, so once they are working, the street should be lit much better. Now if the Management Company would only do that for my parking lot, lol. Once the lights are completed, and hopefully working, I'll try to take a picture at night to show how they look. And maybe I can get a picture of my parking lot to show you how little light we have there, too.

Here's a couple pictures so you can see just how big my balcony is. This is the end of the building, around to the left of the picture of the front of the building. My balcony is the middle one, I'm on the second floor. It's hard to see in the picture but hanging from the bottom of the balcony above me on the right corner, is my birdfeeder. I've seen Cardinals, Sparrows, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Grackles, and Mourning Doves, feeding at or under the feeder.

My balcony in the middle

This the the view I get from my balcony of the building next door. On the first floor is a black family with a little boy. They rarely come outside, unless they are having a bbq, then they blast their hip-hop music so we all can hear it. The second floor is a white family, not sure if I've seen the wife, just a little girl, a couple young men, and an older gentleman who I think is the girl's grandfather. They tend to talk on the phone on their balcony all the time; do they not get reception inside or do they just want me to hear their conversations? On the third floor is another black family, they also don't come out often, and I think there's someone living there, or maybe was just visiting, that is scared of heights, lol.

All that for nothing!

I took the day off from work, stayed up ALL NIGHT so I could watch the lunar eclipse last night. I had my film camera with the 110mm zoom lens ready, I was even prepared to play around with the exposure, taking lots of pictures to see if I could get something half decent of the eclipse. My biggest decision was whether to go to bed and set my alarm for 4:00AM, or to just stay up all night, then sleep after it was over. Since I'm a night person, I thought it would be easier to stay up all night. I watched tv mostly. AMC had The Bishop's Wife on, I watched about half of that. I watched parts of one episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, part of another episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Then when nothing was left on tv to watch, I started reading a book. A romance novel to be specific. I like the author, I've read some of her other stories, but this one was kind of boring. Some of them get me hooked right from the beginning, but not this one. I trudjed along, killing time, and going outside to check on the moon every hour or so.

About 3:00AM, the moon was still in good viewing position, but was partially covered by clouds. I said to myself, "Please have the clouds go away so I can see this." Again at 4:00AM I went outside to check on what might be happening. At this stage, it would only be the prenumbra stage, not much to see, I was more interested in the umbra stage, full coverage of the moon by the earth's shadow. Bright full moon, the clouds had passed by, no shadowing yet that I could see, but some clouds were approaching from the west. Hoping those clouds would all go away before the viewing got good, I went back inside to wait until about 5:00AM when the show would start, back to the book that was not holding my interest. At about 5:00AM, so tired I could probably fall asleep standing up if I wanted to, I went back outside in my jeans and sweatshirt, camera around my neck, hoping for something to photograph.

Clouds! Not just one puffy cloud that would move away, a whole bank of them, with no end to the west. The moon was completely blocked from view, I couldn't even see the glow from it. I had just stayed up all night to see clouds. Looking at the clouds to the west, I decided there was no way the moon was going to peek out for me to get a decent view of the eclipse. I silently trudged back inside, up the stairs, into my apartment, stripped out of my clothes and went to sleep.

The next lunar eclipse is supposed to happen in early February of 2008. That upcoming eclipse will also be viewable from the Americas. Given the time of year, and the typical weather here in the U.S., I'm going to go out on a short limb and say the weather will not co-operate then either. That's the last of the three known lunar eclipses that were expected. I have not heard of when there might be more in the future.

Now I have a fresh roll of film in my camera. I wonder what I should take film pictures of?

I'm thinking it's time to make a change to my blog. Not to the colors, maybe just the background. I'm not sure, let me think on it for a bit. In the meantime, let me find a picture or two to sooth the angry mob that demanded more pictures from me.

Front of my building

The three buildings are connected

Mine is waaaayyyyy down at the end, where you can hardly see it. But I wanted to show how there are three buildings attached together, and I'm in the end one. So if the fire alarm goes off in one, it goes off in all three.