August 31, 2007 by jon.

Kala and I have been talking a bit about the security of this blog and the fact that everything is open to everyone.  I did some checking and found a blog system that we can set the security controls on posts, comments, photos and just about everything else.  We’re going to give this a try.

For the most part, the whole blog will be open, but there will be times that we have a post that we’ll want to keep “Private”.  Many for family and friends.

Take a look at our new blog at CoffeeAndBagels.vox.com and tell me what you think.  I strongly suggest creating a basic account so that I can then add you to our friends and family list to see any of the protected content that we post.  When you create an account, you don’t need to create a blog at all.  A basic account will let you see most content.  This might even be your chance to create your own blog.  This new site is extremely simple and you can easily add photos, music and other content.

Signing up is two steps.  Give some basic information and the system will email you a confirmation.  Click on the confirmation and you’re good to go.

This will probably be my last post on Snurkafamily.com unless things really don’t work out on Vox.

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August 26, 2007 by jon.

Last night I went to the first Geneva High School football game of the year. Last year the Vikings lost in the State Semi-Finals to the Batavia Bulldogs (Boo Hiss!) who went on to lose in the State Championship.

Attending these games is pretty neat because we get to see some neighbors and get in on the community support.  It also allows us to see some friends from our old church and keep in touch with them.

Geneva of course won over Dundee-Crown by a score of 34-7. We were up 21-0 after the first quarter and then just coasted.

It was a great first game and fun to watch. We’ll see where the season goes but at least it starts with a win.

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August 24, 2007 by jon.

Here is the route that I normally run when I go along the Fox River. Over 3/4 of my runs go along the Fox. I guess I’ll have to wait a bit until the water recedes.

We received 2.47 inches of rain in 24 hours. It was mainly in 3 storms of .85 inches in 20 minutes, .83 inches in 30 minutes and the rest over the night. Other CoCoRaHS observers in Kane County recorded over 3 inches! That’s a lot of rain and right now it’s all coming down the Fox.

Here are some photos of the bridge in Geneva and Island Park. For those who have visited us, the playground is the one we would normally walk to. That’s a lot of water!

You can see more photos on our Kodak Album site.

I also uploaded a video shot looking at the dam just above Route 38 in Geneva. You can see it by clicking on Videos on the left.

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August 23, 2007 by jon.

Talk about some rain.  We’ve had two storms this afternoon and so far they’ve delivered over 1.6 inches of rain.  Add that to the 5.57 inches of rain so far this month and animals will start lining up 2 by 2.  And it’s not over.  We should get more rain maybe tonight and tomorrow before things slow down a bit.

CoCoRaHS has some interesting reports showing Intense Precipitation and total acumulation. 

Check it out if you get a chance.  Better yet, sign up so you can contribute to the data!

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August 17, 2007 by jon.

  I just had to post a link to this it’s so weird.

  The Top Earning Dead Celebrities from Forbes. 

  There’s really only one person on the list that I’m pretty sure of where he is now.  J.R.R. Tolkien.  As for the others, who knows and why does it matter how much their estate gets when they are in a bad place?

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August 16, 2007 by jon.

Ok, I try to do no more than 1 post a day, but I just had to put this out there.  This little video really explains the Social Bookmarking trend that actually, I’ve not really gotten in to.  I may have to now.

Social Bookmarking Explained

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August 16, 2007 by jon.

If so, let me know what your blog address is and I’ll post in on my links section.  It’s always good to read others blogs to catch up with people.

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August 8, 2007 by jon.

Here is a link to my photos on Kodak Easy Share site.  You can log in to take a look at them.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=154ynoj9.8so4dsbx&x=1&y=-1seieb

Jon

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August 1, 2007 by jon.

See, I go on vacation and I have time to work on the website.  I’ve updated the following pages with photos.  Check them out when you get a chance.

Robyn Birthday

Brad Baseball

Robyn Softball

2007 Scout Camp

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July 30, 2007 by jon.

What?  The NY Times is publishing an Op Ed that talks positive about the surge and everything going on in Iraq?  You gotta read it to believe it.  Looks like they think the surge is working and that we shouldn’t pull out our troops just yet.

A War We Just Might Win - New York Times

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July 30, 2007 by jon.

You thought I would forget about posting today so you didn’t have to read about the on-going saga of our vacation.  Not a chance.  I just had to update you on what happened Sunday.

Started out with rain.  Lot’s of it.  Nebraska got hit pretty good overnight and it was still sprinkling when we left around 8:30.  The van’s wipers were kind of old so we thought we’d stop and get some new ones.  Who would have thought that gas stations no longer carry windshield wipers?  We stopped at two different ones and both said no.  When we asked them where we could find some wipers we were told Wal-Mart.  Of course.

So we ended up getting underway a little later than we hoped, but in the scheme of things, not a problem.

In an effort to not bore you any more, I won’t post a mile-by-mile account of our trip.  Nebraska is pretty boring and even the eastern part of Colorado all looks the same.  We did cross in to Colorado around 12:30 local time (Having just crossed the time zone line about 5 minutes before crossing into Colorado).

We pulled into our friends house around 3:30 or so.  About a 7 1/2 hour trip.  Not bad.  We continued with Prisoner of Azkaban (7 more chapters!), did a few more ad libs and the kids still got in a movie (Chicken Little).

No, the real story starts here.  Remember that one of the main reasons we came to Colorado was so I could run in the Wild West Relay with the HRH Denver office.  We timed our vacation around this race and I’ve been working up to it in training over the last few months.

Well after arriving at our friend’s house and relaxing for a bit I thought I’d get an easy run in.  You know, something at elevation just so my body can get used to it a bit.  I went in the car looking for my running bag and it wasn’t there.  Panic!  I tore apart the car but it’s hard to hide duffel bag full of running clothes.  It just wasn’t there.  Later, when piecing things together with Kala,  I figured out I left it in our bedroom.  You see I had two running bags.  One with my shoes and clothes and the other with my “Gear”.  Hats, GPS watch, first aid kit and so on.  I had grabbed the gear bag and I’m missing the clothes one.

Now I am in Colorado with no running clothes.  I do have my old pair of running shoes because I thought I would bring them along “Just in case”.  But…No orthotics.  What a mess.  I’m missing my primary shoes, running shorts, shirts, underwear, socks, running pants and some long sleeve shirts and a sweatshirt for after my night runs.  I’m also missing my “Stick” a sort of stick with rollers that I use to loosen up my calves before and after running.

I left a panic stricken call with our neighbor last night.  I asked if he could possibly break into our house and mail me the bag.  He called back today.  He tried, but no luck.  See we got in through our window well a few months ago when we were locked out.  After that event, I moved the lock a bit on the window so it couldn’t be jimmied.  Guess I did a good job because actually two of our neighbors tried but couldn’t get in.  I guess that’s good, except it doesn’t solve my current problem.

It looks like I get to go shopping soon….

BTW - If you read our Vacation Log Day 1, you’ll realized that I knew I had forgotten my warm up pants as we were pulling out of our street.  If I had just decided to go back to get them I probably would have tripped over the duffel bag and all this would have been avoided.  Ugh!

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July 30, 2007 by jon.

I posted our first video to YouTube this morning. I tried a pretty innocous video to start with. Just to be safe.

So here is one of Brad hitting a double that he was able to stretch into a triple. Let me know what you think and I’ll upload some more.

You can also view the clip on our Video Page.

Jon

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July 14, 2007 by jon.

Kala and I were lucky enough to be able to see a pre-screening of this movie about 5 hours before it was release. (7:00 pm on Wednesday) And yes, people were in line for the midnight show.

In preparation for the showing, we re-watched the first four films. We never noticed the differences before between directions when viewing them individually but when viewed within a few days of each others, it is glaringly apparent. Like Hogwart’s Castle looks to be in a different place from movie 2 to 3. Obviously, Dumbledore was played by a different actor after Richard Harris passed away. (I liked Lee’s character better) Also, just the camera angles and the use of lighting differed between movies.

That being said, I must say, this is the best Harry Potter film yet. The plot followed the book for the most part, but it was able to keep moving and not get bogged down. The director did a good job of pulling in little details like why Snape doesn’t like Potter without focusing too much on them. The movie flows well and the special effects, while awesome, don’t distract from the general feel.

Order of the Phoenix begins with Harry using magic outside of Hogwarts. It then delves into how he was able to stay at the HQ for the group fighting Voldemorts army. I only had two problems with the movie. It doesn’t show enough of the true Order of the Phoenix which was made up of the adults. I guess to keep the movie to 2 hours 20 minutes, it didn’t have time to. The other problem is how they didn’t use the term Dumbledore’s Army until Dumbledore used it himself after the fact. If you didn’t read the book, you may not have caught a key part there.

Other than that, the fight scene in the Ministry of Magic is amazing. The viewer is also introduced to new characters like Luna Lovegood who begins to play more into the movie (But she really isn’t introduced well). Also new is Professor Umbridge who quite truly steals the show.  I did enjoy how they developed Neville’s character.
This was the most entertaining sequel movie that I have yet to see this year. (Including Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman, Fantastic Four and Shrek) Certainly worth the price of admission…Oh wait, I went free.

One last thing. The Goblet of Fire was a very dark movie and there were some disturbing scenes. Because of that, we wouldn’t let our kids (10 & 8 ) watch it. Order of the Phoenix still had the Dementors and a few other scenes that might make a child cover their eyes, but overall it was lighter to watch and would not trouble the kids near as much. We’ll probably take ours soon.

So if you see only one movie this summer. I recommend Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

BTW - I am waiting patiently for the new book (Deathly Hallows) but I can wait a bit. I may even read the others again before reading the new ones.

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July 13, 2007 by jon.

Here’s something interesting.  A crew that climbed Everest wore a Garmin 305.  Pretty much the same model I use to run with.  You can read about it and see the evelation tracking on thier blog below.
MBlog: IMAX Crew Tracks Mount Everest

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June 11, 2007 by jon.

What a wonderful weekend!  Started with Brad’s All Star game Saturday morning.  Brad was on the National League team as was 17 other kids.  They picked 3  players from each team so it was a little crowded.  Brad’s coach also was coach of the all star team so Brad felt a little more comfortable.  I really like how Coach Bob did the lineup.  He had players from the same teams play together on alternate innings.  So Brad was on the field with his friends each time he was in the field.  Brad also got to play on the same team as his friend Michael.

The National League was behind the whole game.  Brad got to play 3rd, catcher, and outfield.  He was the only one to get an extra base hit.  His came in the last inning with 2 outs.  He hit a RBI double to kick the rally off.  Brad also had some good plays at third and catch.  Even though they lost, it was a lot of fun.

Oh, did I forget to say it was Robyn’s birthday?  The big 8.  My little girl is growing up.  What did we do to celebrate?  Robyn went to softball practice.  Then we went to TGIFriday’s for dinner.  They sang to her, but she was a little shy.  Her birthday gifts from the family included softball items like a bat bag, visor and water bottle.  All pink of course.

Sunday, Brad had another game (Lost 11-10).  I really enjoy watching him play catcher.  I think he does a great job and has a good feel for what’s going on.  After the game, we rushed home so that we could go to Robyn’s birthday party.  Robyn decided she wanted a Shrek birthday so we had 12 kids go to the movie theater to watch Shrek 3.  That was crazy.  Robyn didn’t quite know what to do with all of the girls vying for her attention.  I guess since she was the princess of the evening, all of the girls wanted a part of her.  That was not a position Robyn is used to being in and she was a little shy.

The movied ended up to be pretty good.  Robyn got to start the movie by pushing the big green button AND she got to take home a part of the movie (They cut off a few cells to give her)

Another busy weekend but it was a blast.

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