Chicago

Long story short, we're going to be landlords.

Short story long, our realtor contacted us a little over two weeks ago asking if we'd be interested in renting out our place in Chicago. A couple is moving to the area because he is on a contract position with a company that has a campus right across the street from our townhouse. So, after a week of negotiations and a week and a half of waiting to get the signed lease back from the tenants (which didn't happen until last night) we are heading down today to get the place ready for them to move in.

For those of you in Chicagoland we'll have some free time on Sat/Sun and of course, we have to eat, so we'd love to get together for lunch or dinner with you. Give us a call or email us (although I can't guarantee we'll have internet access after noon today).

How sad!

MSNBC has an article titled "Best hotels for an affair" (link purposefully not included). To even come up with that topic shows how plauged this nation is. What a sad sad commentary on our values. Where's the article "Best hotels to reinvigorate your marriage"? or "Top 10 little things to do to brighten your spouses day"?

Glutton?

Maybe I know the next educational opportunity pending that I am still interested come next year. This program, although it's really new, looks like fun.

Coasting

Results for the 2008 CFA examinations were posted yesterday promptly at 9:00 am EST, and promptly the website was overloaded. The CFA is a series of three exams that are offered once a year (for level 2 and level 3), thankfully I passed the last level (passing rate this year for level 3 was 53%) and now it's coasting time until I complete the requisite work experience, then I can frame and hang the bohemoth physical certificate.

This will be the first time since kindergarten that I haven't explicitly had an educational goal to reach. It is kind of silly. The first thing I did yesterday after waiting the 45 minutes for the website to come to capacity ws to identify the next thing to "accomplish". Woe is me!

Amanda says that I need to take some time off from the accomplishment mode and spend time being a dad (~175 days away) and that if I still feel beckoned to take on the next step come Fall 2009 then we can consider it.

Lucid Dreaming

On Monday night I had a dream. No, this isn't one of those Dr. Martin Luther King "I have a dream" moments, this one was far more mundane. I don't really remember the premise of the dream, that's not the point. What I do remember is that at some point in the dream I realized that it was indeed a dream. When I realized this I realized that I could change the occurrences in the dream. Case in point: I was in some sort of a warehouse/hangar and I could see that it was bright and sunny outside. Since I "knew" it was a dream I "changed" the weather to raining.

I've had other dreams before where I realized at some point that it was a dream but this was the first time that I actively changed the dream.

When I woke up on Tuesday morning I told Amanda about it. She pretty much thought I was nuts and that "dreams are meant to be experienced, not to change". Apparently this world of interacting with your dream is a part of a process called lucid dreaming. Interesting. I don't know that I'm going to "practice" dreaming (that just sounds strange) but it is kind of neat to change your dream environment and do things that you wouldn't traditionally do (like changing the weather!).

Adoption

I found this little tidbit (from this article) interesting. "If only 7 percent of the 2 billion Christians in the world would care for a single orphan in distress, there would effectively be no more orphans. "

Hopefully one day we'll (both Amanda and I as a couple and the world as a whole) will jump in.

Running would be more fun if ....

While I try to run most every day I admit that it does get boring. I'm almost up to 600 miles this year, eventually, after 150 hours of "It Takes a Thief" (which is the best program on TV from 4:00 to 5:00 (i.e. run time)), it gets boring. I would much rather run for hours playing basketball or ultimate frisbee than run for minutes playing "how far can I get on this treadmill". Now I can have the best of both worlds! I may be a little slow but it dawned on me a couple of days ago to rig up my playstation to the TV that's about 6 feet from the treadmill. Now I can run and play at the same time, yesterdays game of choice was a soccer game called "Winning Eleven 6". It takes a little bit of time to get used to the whole treading/playing environment, mostly I have to think about not kicking the ball when a kick is due, I might fall off of the treadmill.

Lest you thought I wasn't keeping up with the 2008 Challenge:
Miles Ran: 601.86
Miles Target: 601.09

Any papa monkeys in the treehouse?

Last tuesday Amanda and I went to a fundraiser for a Christian center for at risk teenagers called Treehouse. My work sponsors this organization and had purchased a table at the fundraiser dinner/auction. One reason we wanted to go was that we haven't gotten too involved here in the Twin Cities, I don't know if it's due to wanting to wait until we moved across town (which commenced in the beginning of June) or if it's due to not having any discretionary income (chicago house is gobbling all of that up!), probably a combination of both.

The keynote speakers at the event were three of the youth that have participated for a number of years. The common thread of the speakers were that the fathers weren't in the picture (with at least one not having a quality mother). It's sad that "men" don't take the responsibility of children seriously.