The rest of the story...

I hear Paul Harvey has passed away at age 90. The young newscaster (in her 20s?) who told the story confessed that she did know who he was and Googled him to find out more. The other young newscaster replied yeah, he did something like the rest of the story or something like that. I guess it has been some 20 years since I used to listen to him on the radio at lunchtime on the job I was working. At the time I swallowed everything he said, but since that time I heard he accidentally promoted misinformation. Here is a pic of me from 20 years ago.

Today Karen had a big exam related to her teacher training in Bloomington, IL. Kris and I tagged along to hang out at a mall, then we all went to Fazolis (there is no longer one in Peoria). Nothing picture-worthy from this trip. It has been cold and cabin fever is starting to set in.

Foggy Morning

Lots of fog this morning and a fair amount of rain tonight. Tonight I electronically submitted the grant proposal that a colleague and I have been working on. Kris has off of school today and tomorrow.

Patriotic Program

On Thursday the 4th grade at Peoria Christian School had their Patriotic Program, in which all the kids dress up as a famous person in American history. Kris dressed up as Helen Keller. She was quite impressive. When she said her name to the audience, she did the sign language corresponding to her name. In the pictures of the program, Kris is in the tinted glasses and brown dress (that Karen sewed together to match fashions of the time). The girl in the blue dress next to her represents Anne Sullivan. The boy dressed like Samuel Clemens is Kris's friend Sam.

It's been a while since I have blogged - things have been really busy. Kris has built a snug little blanket fort indoors and has even slept in a couple times. Today is our 15.5 year anniversary, so we went out tonight rather than on Valentine's Day. All 3 of us went to one of those Japanese steak houses where the chef cooks and does culinary stunts at your table. I told Kris the story of how on our first 6-month anniversary I repackaged stir-fried rice from a local restaurant and had Karen briefly convinced that I had cooked it myself. (Karen was amused.) When we got back from the restaurant, I was adding paper to the fireplace and my wedding ring slipped off my finger and flew into the fireplace! I had to wait for the fire to burn down to sift through the ashes, but I eventually found my hot ring. It is fine, but when it was hot there was this glowing writing on the ring that said "One nerd to rule them all..."

Happy Birthday, Abe!

Today is Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. Barack Obama stopped by Peoria today on his way to Springfield to celebrate. We have had quite a few presidential visits over the years, see: http://www.lincolncourier.com/archive/x1851010340/Presidential-visits-to-Peoria-area Being a fan of Lincoln myself, I thought I would post some pix of a visit to Springfield in 2005, including pix of Lincoln's house, his teeny writing desk, outside his tomb, and his tomb.

Meltdown

Had a warm spell this weekend (Saturday we broke a record and hit 65). Most of the snow here has melted. I succumbed to cabin fever and went out fossil hunting today - found mostly small fragments, but a few were keepers. Here are some pix along the way.

LID is through the review room!

I don't like to talk much about our efforts to adopt from China because the process is taking such a very long time and there is typically "nothing new". Besides, I am such an impatient person that the whole topic can be uncomfortable for me to discuss. I do have some news now. When a family goes through the process of adopting from China, they must prepare a bunch of information (home study, etc.) and send it to China in a dossier. We started the paperwork in March, 2005. (Some of you may remember how we had to get the help from the office of now-youngest-U.S.-Representative Aaron Schock to clear a paper work snag.) When the dossier arrives in China, it is given a Log In Date (LID). Our LID was in March 21, 2006, nearly two years ago. The dossier is then translated into Mandarin and then reviewed (in what is apparently called the review room). After that there is another wait for the referral (the match), then more time until we get to China.

This whole system is in a bottleneck right now: the "demand" for orphans has far surpassed the "supply", though it seems crude to couch human beings in these terms. This is actually really good news, it means that the culture in China is shifting to be more orphan-friendly, and ultimately it should be all about the kids. That said, this bottleneck was unexpected, so it leaves many adoptive families waiting FAR longer than they thought they would have to wait when they started the arduous (and expensive) process to get things done. Some familes have pulled out of the program.

BUT

Yesterday we found out that the group of dossiers with our LID made it through the review room. We still have a least a year to go, but this is a milestone we have been hoping and praying for THANK GOD! My pic of the day is of a sunbreak in the clouds, because that what it felt like to me when we got the news.

Some Weekend Pix

On Friday night the Chem Club Demo Crew participated in Late Night BU, a once monthly, campus wide, alcohol alternative event that ran from 10 pm to 2 am. Our demo show ran from 11 pm to midnight and was in a corner of one of the big rooms in the spacious Markin Center. The logistics were tricky, but we had a number of visitors. After cleaning up I got home to bed about 2 am. It's pathetic that I can't remember the last time I was up that late. Saturday it warmed up a bit (finally), so Kris and I went out and used the easy packing snow to build a fort. We had a snowball fight: I got more hits, but one of hers melted ALL the way down my back. It was quite cold! Tonight we are watching the Super Bowl. Go Steelers! Some of the commercials are cute. Happy Groundhog Day tomorrow!