So, a few days ago Eliza and I are coming home and pulling up on our driveway.  Eliza opens her door and shrieks!  As the good husband, I quickly look over to her in great concern and ask what's wrong.  Keep in mind I have removed my hand from the door handle and don't have any short term plans to open it much less step outside.  She tells me there's a squirrel in the bushes and it's dead.  What the?!  With the knowledge that the feral beast is dead, I walk out to get a closer look.  Yep, it's a brown squirrel, it's head resting on the edge of our boxed in boxwoods.  It's dark out, we're tired, I say I'll deal with it later.

The next day what do we find?  The darn thing moved, flopped onto it's back, and was on our driveway next to the garbage can!  It could have at least had the common courtesy to jump into the garbage can, not just next to it.  Theories abound as to why and how this critter died.  Was he attacked and brought as a gift for one of our female cats?  It's no secret a gray male house cat frequents our windows to woo our girls.  Was his love jilted, and so he tried to throw away his affections, only to fail since he does not have opposable thumbs?  Did the squirrel play possum only to be felled by a neighborhood raccoon?  We may never know.

I gave it a proper burial.  The hole was dug as deep as my physical qualities would allow.  Meaning not very deep.  Interestingly, the scent will probably drive our neighbors dog to insanity on the other side of the fence.  That will be fun to watch.  Secretly, I hope this is one of the squirrels that invaded our garage.

This event did bring one thing to light about us however.  We may want to shoot every single squirrel and rabbit that snacks on our garden, even to the point of researching high powered air rifles, but we're too squeamish to deal with the bodies.

There is something so wonderful about music.  I can not play music with my hands or feet.  I wish I could play guitar or feather the keys of a piano.  So instead, I have my headphones and other assorted gear.  A Stello DA100 USB DA Converter, a Stello HP100 Headphone amp, and my blessed AKG K 701's.  While the AKG's cost me a pretty penny, the Stello gear was a gift from my uncle.

The clarity of these cans is something to behold.  They make everything else sound horrible in one fluid clear move.  I broke in the components with thousands of hours playing the two disc sound track to Phantom of the Opera.  For weeks it looped on and on.  The DA100 was a review sample.  From what I understand, it was sent to soundstage.com for a review, which can be found here.  The HP100 was a CES floor model.  Could be the other way around.

Unfortunately, this gear readily brings to light how horrible some of my MP3's really are.  The clipped highs, the fuzz of overcompressed audio, they are just grating.  Especialy if I like the song, I'm forced to skip the track because of how it sounds.  A funny thing indeed.  But as I listen to a decently encoded track of Green Day's Letter Bomb, wow.  I am moved to blog.  Now that is the power of music.

Now if I could only convince my Uncle to let me have one of his Signature Series DAC's and a Stello CDT ...

Another season of Cubs baseball has come and gone.  What had been such a promising season at the start ended so dismally.  A team that the Cubs had managed to manhandle earlier in the season, had grown angry and punished the Cubbies.  What a wreck.

This was the first game of a double header with the Pirates on Sept 30th.  It was a make up game that was rain delayed back on a Sunday in August.  At least on that day we waited for three hours but had jets roaring overhead from the air and water show going on nearby.   But, as you can see even the fans have given up on the Cubs.  Wrigley field was startlingly empty.

Here I am.  Sad as can be.  The Cubs were shelled in the first inning for four.  And yes it was friggen cold out there.

if I had known the cubs were going to get shut out, and that it would be the most boring game of the season, I would have camped out at Captain Morgan's.  The only thing that really kept me interested, was the creative ways the Cubs were getting on base.  They either had to get hit by a pitch, or get a walk to get there.  Scales OBP for the game was 50%.  1 HBP, 1 walk.

And here's the last pitch of the game.  Soto grounded out to third.  

There were a few things I learned on this day.  Ronnie Woo Woo has lungs and skills.  Buffalo fries with blue cheese are amazing.  Games on cold days, means your beer never gets warm.  I would never survive a Bears game in winter.

It was a good and bad weekend.  Bad because Eliza had the flu.  Good because, well, it was a good weekend.

I can't begin to describe the sense of relief that came over me when I read a letter from the IRS.  I had been under audit for my 2007 taxes.  On Friday, that audit was over and I was in the clear.  I don't owe or get any money, but the status quo works just fine for me.  If it had gone the other way, I would have had to pay a ridiculous four digit number in back taxes.  A welcome event.

We also hit up the REI garage sale.  They had some really great items on sale.  One item I still have a bit of remorse for not buying, was a pair of Ortlieb bike packer plus panniers.  They were used but in good condition.  The one caveat was a broken rack attachment bracket.  Normally available somewhere north of $200, on sale for $50.  The REI Cirque ASL 2 we returned was there as well, for $77 bucks.  If it was a bit lower, i would have picked that up too.  I hope someone picked up that tent.  It really is a great tent.  All it was missing was a short three foot pole that holds the rainfly up.  We did end up buying a Cocoon CoolMax TravelSheet for me, and a Topeak Explorer Disc Rack for Eliza.

Earlier, I had ordered and shipped my new sleeping bag to REI.  For decades, I've been using a sleeping bag my dad got for me at Montgomery Wards.  No more.  I'm now an owner of a Mountain Hardwear Ultralamina 15.  I can't believe how light this thing is, nor how small it packs down.  This is going to do great on our car camping trip in a couple of weeks.

Our adventures in purchasing a small 4 quart camp style dutch oven continues.  We had gone to two army surplus stores without success.  We figured Cabela's would have one though.  It was not meant to be.  We're just about to give up on the idea of getting one.  We could order one and pick it up at Cabela's, but it's a haul getting out there.  I did pick up a hundred feet of paracord.  Eliza also got to hold a SOG Seal Pup for the first time.  She really liked it.  Enough that she ordered the SOG Seal Pup Elite in black with the Kydex sheath on Amazon last night.  I'm ridiculously jealous.  What did I do?  I sharpened my folding knife that I got from my cousin Ray several years ago.  My knife is good enough for camping, so I don't need another.  But good grief, that SOG is just wild!

On Sunday over coffee at Walker Brothers, I couldn't help but day dream about multiday hiking the Napali coast, and bike touring around Lake Michigan.  Slowly, the gear pieces are coming together.  Now I just need to get in better shape.  A bet with a friend has been made for motivation.  Before the beginning of summer, each of us have to lose 10% of our body weight to win.  Whoever does not, buys the other a steak dinner at Chophouse.  Get ready Oscar, I want a Chicago style Prime Rib.

And if you're wondering, man where do they get all this money to buy all this cool gear?  Well we used a 20% off coupon for the bag, and $50 worth of gift certificates on the knife.  The bike rack was $11.  The Cocoon was $19.  Power shopping baby.