MichaelandChrissy.com

Chrissy and I really love our new iPhones, but we’re now fearful of their fragility.  Don’t drop it!  Don’t scratch the glass!  We’ve read many iPhone horror stories online, so we wanted to buy protective cases.  Chrissy did a little research, and found some really nice leather cases from Sena.  They’re hand-made from Italian Napa leather with a velvet lining.  Swanky!

We put in an order for a pair of Sena MagnetFlipper cases, hoping that they would arrive before we leave for Disney World next week.  We didn’t want to go traveling while in constant danger of smashing our new phones!  As luck would have it, they showed up this weekend.  The only problem was that mine didn’t come in the right color.  I got “tea” instead of “tan”.

At first I was a little miffed, since I was set on “tan”.  There are a lot of colors to choose from!  I was tempted to send it back immediately.  But “tea” started to grow on me.  It’s like a dark mahagony stain, except in leather.  I dig the dark wood stains (all of the furniture in my house is done in dark stained oak), so I decided to keep the case even though it was the “wrong” color.

Once I settled on keeping it, I was really happy with the case.  It fits snugly around the iPhone, but allows access to all of the buttons.  The screen is protected by a sturdy leather flap that is held in place with magnets.  There are holes for the speakers, camera lens and headphone jack.  There is even an opening for the data port, so I can sync my iPhone without taking off the case.

Fish died.  To be specific, Aiden’s first pet (technically the second, after a miraculous color change), a fish named “Fish”, is once again dead.  We’re not sure how it happened, but the story of how it came to be is one that is long and fraught with peril.  I will continue.

Fish was happy and full of life on Friday morning.  Chrissy fed him his fish flakes, then made the mistake of walking away.  Unbeknown to her, Aiden then also tried to feed Fish.  Aiden fed the hell out of Fish.  Chrissy came back to find a half-inch deep layer of fish food on the surface of the tank’s water, slowly trickling down towards Fish.  This, however, was not what killed Fish.

Chrissy quickly pulled Fish out and then cleaned his tank.  There’s a good chance that Fish will die every time you clean his tank.  It gets cleaned in the sink, just above the garbage disposal (and Fish has come close to falling in more than once).  Chrissy cleaned the tank without incident, then put Fish back in.  Fish was pretty happy, and Aiden left Fish alone after that.  One more lucky break for Fish.

Aiden came to Chrissy a little while later, soaking wet from the knees down.  He had been kneeling in water, trying to pick up the green river rocks that used to be in the fish tank.  Although the tank, the water, and all of the rocks were on the ground next to the table, Fish was missing.  Chrissy didn’t think it was Aiden’s fault, since he was dry from the knees up (the tank would have hit him in the chest on the way down).

Chrissy found Fish, minus the plumage usually found on Bettas, dried up and crusty on the other side of the room.  We assume that one of the cats knocked the tank over and accosted him.  It was most likely Xiao-Ai, who always took a great interest in Fish.  We were all greatly saddened.  Aiden hasn’t been paying as much attention to Fish lately though, so I don’t think we’ll be so quick to replace him this time.

My left front tire has had a steady leak in it for a while.  I somehow got a roofing nail stuck in it.  At one point, the Honda service center had patched it for me during an oil change, but it started losing air again once it started getting cold.  I’ve been pretty good about putting air in it every day this winter (I have an air compressor in the garage), but it was just a matter of time before it went flat during the day.

That day would be yesterday.  After work, I found my tire flat, most likely because I had parked it on a wedge of ice.  I called “Triple A” and was told that I would have to wait for two hours for the truck to arrive.  I then called Chrissy and she told me (in no uncertain terms) to change the tire myself.   I really didn’t want to do that, but she had somewhere to be at 7PM and was expecting me home to watch the kids.

So I changed the tire myself.  Changing tires is hard!  Not difficult, just laborious.  I put on that tiny little spare tire and got about halfway home before I remembered that I have a lug nut lock.  Did I put it in the trunk?  I didn’t remember doing that.  So I pulled over at 93rd and Stony Island to look in the trunk.  Nope!  Well, I need it…  So I drove all the way back to see if I could find the lug nut key on the street.

No luck.  So at this point, I have a donut tire permanently attached to my car, with no way to remove it.  The rest of my tires also have lug nut locks, with no way to remove them either.  I already had enough to worry about: I had to drive home on an emergency tire in rush hour traffic.  I hate that donut tire.  I hoped that the tire place would have something to take care of this for me (crossing the fingers).

The next morning, I took my car to the Tire Barn.  Thankfully, they had no trouble destroying the lug nut locks.  My car has a sports suspension, so I have to put on “V” rated tires or else they will tear to shreds in short order.  Tire Barn hooked me up with a full set of performance tires for about $600 with installation and taxes.  That was more than I wanted to spend, but mine were about shot, and the new ones should last me a while.

Back in November, I was trying to choose an MP3 player for Chrissy’s birthday, so I suggested an iPod Touch to her.  She didn’t know what it was, so I told her that an iPod Touch was basically an iPhone without the phone bits.  She didn’t want anything with that much functionality, she just wanted something to play music on during scrapbooking events.  But the seed had been planted: iPhones are cool.

Our Verizon contract was up recently, so we needed to get some new phones.  We were looking at the Blackberry Storm, since it was very similar to the iPhone, and we could stay with Verizon if we went with that.  However, it didn’t have WiFi capability or the ability to download new applications.  We tried out both of them at the local Best Buy, but Chrissy was won over by the iPhone.

The clincher was when we found out that we could get 15% off of services through AT&T Premiere because I work for the University of Chicago.  Certain companies and universities have deals with AT&T, so you can get the discount if you’re affiliated with one.  We ordered two new 8GB iPhone 3G devices and ported our numbers over to AT&T right on their web site.

The iPhone is really handy.  We have already synced up our Outlook contact lists, and I’m currently trying to connect a family calendar.  I can check my email from it too.  I’ve downloaded applications for eBay, AIM, Twitter and WordPress already.  Those are all free, but I’ve got my eye on a couple of pay apps.  The iPhone has lots of functionality, so we’ll be playing with them for a while to see how much they can do for us.

I do a lot of Transformers shopping at Target.  There’s one right around the corner from my house, so it’s easier to get to than the nearest Wal-Mart, and they usually keep a good stock of figures.  Transformers sold very well over Christmas, but I was surprised to see that my Target wouldn’t restock afterward.  Two weeks later, surprise gave way to aggravation.  Three weeks later,  aggravation gave way to righteous fury.  Put some new stock on your damn empty shelves already!

I guess that they were holding out for the annual inventory check, which was last weekend.  Then at last, I found stacks and stacks of Transformers cases of all sizes at Target.  It had been weeks since there was anything on the shelves, and my obsessive-compulsive side took over.  I ripped off the tape on the nearest box and peeked inside.  NEW ANIMATED TOYS!  I tried again.  NEW ROBOT HEROES!  Before I could stop myself, I had opened four cases…  And then I got caught.

A clerk rounded the bend and sternly told me that I was not allowed to open the boxes.  I explained, happily, that I already had, and look what I found!  I asked if I could keep them, and she said that as long as I had already taken them out of the case, then I might as well take them.  Big smile.  Like she was going to take them away or something!  But I was pretty sure that there were more cases in the back, still waiting to be looted by me.  I would be patient, for now…

So I came back later on in the evening and found that all of the Transformers deluxe figures were restocked.  I couldn’t decide which ones to get, so I got ALL of them.  I picked up Hound (with Ravage), Cyclonus, Smokescreen (Prowl repaint), Cheetor, Dinobot, Starscream (Classics repaint), Animated Blurr, Animated Swindle, and Blazing Lockdown.  I was so happy that Target finally replenished the supply that I forgave them for making me wait over a month for my fix.

For the last several years, I’ve let my hair grow out over the winter.  I usually get a trim around the holidays, but I’m pretty shaggy by late February or March.  I have a low-maintenance noggin, so I give up shaving and haircuts until the weather warms up.  The extra hair keeps me toasty in the Winter! I went without the trim in December, so my hair was approaching my neck by last week.  I was hoping to try a longer style for once, instead of just chopping it all off in the Spring.

Unfortunately, my hair had gotten too wild for Chrissy.  As a point of interest, know that she won’t be happy until I shave my entire head.  I’m not ready to do that yet, so we compromise with “haircut like Bert“.  This is when they cut my hair so short that all that’s left is the sides and the little tuft at the top around my high hairline.  That is the default Summer cut, and then it grows out into something less grotesque over time.  You can see the progression here:

So I gave in to Chrissy and went in for a haircut last weekend. However, I didn’t ask for a Bert, but instead just to tame down the fringe so that it was still long but not as unruly.  The stylist took off about an inch, cleaned up the sides and the cowlicks, and then fixed the long hair in the front.  I was happy with it, and didn’t have to shave my head this time.  Chrissy seems to approve as well.  So maybe I’ll have long hair again by March?

Those little GPS units that hang above the dashboard in your car can sure come in handy.  I figured that we might need one when we went to Disney World next month, so we kept an eye out for deals.  Luckily, the TomTom 125 went on sale for $98 (close-out price, down from $179), which was the lowest that I had ever seen one for.  It took a little searching, but we finally found one available.

We decided to try it out yesterday on our way to Chicago.  It has a little map on it that updates as you drive.  Although it would have been more useful if the driver could have seen it during the trip, Chrissy held it in her lap the entire time.  She was glued to the screen, announcing street names as we passed them.  I’ve driven this way a thousand times, and not once did I wonder what that street was called.  Or that one…

Chrissy programmed the address for the theater, so I could still hear the suggestions from the box.  “Turn right,” or, “After eight hundred yards, keep left.”  Very helpful stuff, if you have no idea where you are.  The stupid Box drove me right into traffic, exactly where I knew there would be traffic.  I could have taken Lake Shore Drive and been fine, but no, the Box told me to take the Dan Ryan into the Loop.

On the way home, I decided to openly defy the Box.  Instead of following its advice to head directly to the Dan Ryan, I headed east to Lake Shore Drive.  The TomTom picked up on what I was doing pretty quickly, and then suggested that I take Monroe to LSD instead of circling back to Randolph.  Good call, Box!  It then lead us to dinner.  We’re glad that we picked it up, and it should be useful during our travels.

Chrissy and I went to Chicago today to see Dirty Dancing at the Cadillac Palace Theater.  I had never seen the actual movie (except for bits and pieces over the years).  From what I can tell, the first Act is about a convoluted cover-up plan to enable an abortion, which eventually leads to statutory rape.  This is supposed to be 1963?  They keep talking about Kennedy and the Peace Corps, but I thought that was a simpler time.  The second Act was all about justification for the crime, culminating in a huge dance number.

Chrissy enjoyed it a lot though.  She said that it followed the original 1987 movie very closely, while other Broadway shows sometimes take some liberties with the story.  I thought it was a little rushed, perhaps to get everything in the movie on stage within the allotted time.  The flow seemed clipped, like they were trying very hard to jump from scene to scene exactly as the movie did, despite the fact that theater is a different format.  So it was more like a movie being shown on a stage than a theatrical musical.

Production-wise, it wasn’t a bad show, but I was expecting more.  After seeing Wicked and The Lion King, I kind of expected to see more elaborate set pieces.  Dirty Dancing has a rotating stage with a large digital display at the rear, making it easy to transition into different settings.  I guess the problem that I had was that the sets transitioned by changing the channel on the screen behind them as opposed to actually moving new set pieces out onto the stage.  Then there were the questionable musical aspects of the show.

The lead actors, who look surprisingly exactly like their movie counterparts, didn’t sing at all.  All of their lines were spoken, mostly taken directly from the movie.  Minor characters did some singing, but most of the music was recorded and played directly from the soundtrack.  At least it ended well: Baby does the lift that she could never get right, Johnny does the triple axle that he would never get right, and Daddy finally accepts Baby as an adult, and everything is right with the world. [oh, um, spoiler!]

It was -45F degrees this morning with the wind chill.  It was almost just as bad yesterday, but today is too much.  At these extreme temperatures, exposed skin will burn within two minutes.  Chrissy and I were talking about it this morning, and I joked that it was “slice open and crawl inside your tauntaun” cold outside.  I saw that quote in a blog article yesterday and thought it was funny.  What happened next shocked me.

Chrissy asked what a tauntaun was.  Oh no she didn’t! “You know what a tauntaun is! On Hoth, Han Solo stuffs Luke Skywalker into a tauntaun and says, ‘This won’t smell good, kid, but it’ll keep you warm.’”  Chrissy thinks for a moment and says, “Oh, that dead animal.”  Yes, Chrissy, the dead animal.  This is almost as bad as that video where the girl describes the Star Wars trilogy despite the fact that she had never seen it.

Chrissy has seen “Return of the Jedi” before.  I’m going to get the entire saga as soon as it comes out on Blu-Ray DVD in a box set, preferrably packaged with a life-sized Yoda.  I saw the first movie when I was four years old, so I think that Aiden will enjoy it when he’s a little older as well.  In fact, today might be a good day to watch the entire first trilogy over again.  It’s too cold to go outside, so let’s stay in and watch Star Wars!

It has snowed an awful lot this week.  We’ve gotten about two feet of snow since the weekend, so I’m glad that we got the giant snowblower last year!  Julie called to say that she wanted to take Aiden outside to play in the snow.  It was crazy cold, but Aiden was bundled up in his snow suit.  He didn’t look like he could move very well in it, but Chrissy went out with him for a bit since he was already bundled up.

When Julie came over, Chrissy went inside to warm up.  Julie pulled Aiden around the block in the sled and then stopped by the park.  She was even rolling around in the snow with him!  Aiden loved it.  He didn’t want to come back inside, but he was pretty freezer burnt by the time they got back.  Every part of him was kept warm except his face, which was pretty red.  He still cried about having to stay in though!