Suburban Cowboy

Nothing like a trip to buy cowboy boots to make a youngster happy. Jordan and I went to the famous Alcala's Western Wear to pick up some boots. I used all my might to refrain from buying myself a pair of yellow ostrich skin boots.

Jordan loved seeing the store clerks walking around in their cowboy hats and gear. This is also the store for buying a great leather holster for your six-shooter.

Visit to ND

I took a whole van full of people to South Bend for the football home opener at Notre Dame. The group included Paul and Jack, my niece Siena, my brother Jon and the big guy, Joseph C. WE made sure to arrive on campus in enough time to do a little tail gating and walk around. As expected, there was a huge crowd and the day was spectacular. Siena and Jack had their first experience with going to a big time college event. The marching band, the cheerleaders and the atmosphere left us feeling very happy.


The game itself turned into a disappointment as the Fighting Irish could not generate any offense. We had little to cheer about, but the kids had a great time anyway.

As Paul said, the coaches should have put the band in, since they had the most yardage all day.

Big Trees

Looking at trees sounds a little boring, unless the trees you are talking about are unusual. Giant Sequoia trees are unusual. They are big - unimaginably big. Even when you are standing at the foot of the tree and straining your head back to look up its nearly 250 foot height it is diificult to comprehend the size of the plant.

These are trees that have branches bigger than the biggest oak tree in your neighborhood. These are trees that have been around since the Roman Legions rules the Western hemisphere.

These are also trees that only grow in very specific environments and that have existed for only a couple of generations. Weird.

In the photo, the boys and I are standing at the base of the General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park. This tree is considered the most massive living thing on the planet, and it is still slowly growing, adding 50 cubic feet of wood each year.

Wrigley Pilgrimage

I had the good fortune to land some tickets to the Cubs/Sox game a couple of Saturdays ago.

Jack, Paul and Stevie, Paul's friend made the trip with me to Wrigley Field. We had great seats and a fantastic time watching a very exciting game.


Stevie called it the best game he had ever been to see - not bad for a 9-year old! Jack waited until the second inning before saying he was ready to go home. Paul ate only one serving of nachos. All in all , a great day.

After the game, we walked down close to the field for some photos. Then we walked outside the park for our bus back to the parking lot. The kids witnessed some of the exciting street scenes that are part of the scene around Wrigley Field. There was the drunken 300 pound guy walking around screaming incoherently at people; the technician outside Metro with the 2 foot high mohawk; and various people swearing. These are the things a father cannot teach.

Where have I been?

Good God, I have not posted anything since last October?! Bad show! A lot has been happening over the past half of a year. Shame on me for not keeping up with it. Life has been busy but good. I will not bore with a recap of some of the standard events like birthdays and holidays. Let's just leave it as we are here now and we should concentrate on the future.

Halloween report

No surprise that our Halloween was a big success with those people concerned about such things. Margaret had made about 80 bags of goodies. These were gone in the first couple of hours, and we went to the candy reserves for the rest of the evening. We had easily over 100 trick or treaters visit us.











Meanwhile, our threesome was busy pillaging the neighborhood. For the first time out, Paul took the small guys around our block without adult accompaniment. They survived the trip, and we have not received any complaint calls from the neighbors. I took the boys out for another round of collecting candy. Batman (Jordan), Panda (Jack) and Alien (Paul) gathered about two pounds of candy each. Jordan made a compelling case for most energetic trick or treater as he ran from house to house screaming "Happy Halloween!" for the first half hour.

Birthday Season

We have a lot of birthdays this time of year, starting in mid-August and running through mid-October. Here is one of the celebrations for me and Jordan. Two people who are very happy about eating chocolate cake!