Metal sails?

This is the bandshell above the stage at the Jay Pritzker pavilion at Chicago's Millennium Park.

Christmas shopping

As you can tell from the furrowed brow, this is serious business. "This", of course, is Christmas shopping.

From Thanksgiving night until Christmas Eve, I will not see her entire face because she will be "on a mission from Santa" and hidden (at least partially) behind a computer screen, or on the way to CVS, or Walgreens, or Kohl's, or...

This lady is a professional. She makes Santa look like a slacker.

More balls!

Apparition

Obviously, this is the face of Jesus (or Mary?) (or John Lennon?) (or Ed from the car wash?) and it appeared in the bottom of our ranch dressing cup at Buffalo Wild Wings because God is unhappy with the changes that were made to the Catholic Mass and implemented today.

I fully expect news vans to be all over the outside of my house and plan to put this up for auction on eBay. Hello, easy retirement!

Balls!

House lights

As if proof was needed that I am a nerd, this is a photo of part of the diagram I keep with our outside Christmas lights to remind me how to connect them. I took the pic with my phone so I would have it to refer to while up on the roof.

Terri and I put up the lights on Friday.

Thanksgiving

A daddy and his first baby girl.

Sgt. Patrick John McGrath IV, USMC with his newborn daughter, Grace Elizabeth, on her birthday, 11/17/11.

Grace is Liam's sister, and her mom is Julie.

All are extremely thankful for each other.

Last Sunday's menu

Central School entrance (Riverside, IL)

Early Thanksgiving dinner

Terri on steps

Shadow people

Maple

Lambert's Restaurant

Not a Pink Floyd album cover

Line up and smile, we're having our picture taken

Southern Utah

Trees growing out of rock

What else could one possibly need?

Aces

See you again in 100 years!

Northern Arizona

Grand Canyon

Standing on the north rim, looking at a thunderstorm moving in.

See ya!

Please be orderly as you leave us, autumn.

Fading colors

The rich summer colors of the hydrangea just outside the front door fade slowly as the days get shorter and colder.

Blue sky, red and yellow plane

Intersection

A foggy early morning in central Illinois during harvest time where 100 E and 900 N meet just northeast of Monticello.

There was also a beautiful intersection of morning stillness and cool, sweet-smelling, damp air.

Jetta versus Bambo, 2008

He almost made it across the Indiana Toll Road without me getting him. But, as I braked and turned toward the grassy median that he jumped from, the front right of the car caught his back end. It must have spun him as one of his hooves dented the back door before he flew across the right lane and the shoulder and into the ditch where he died instantly.

Looking up

Chicago tradition

Rose

Two elderly couples were enjoying friendly conversation when one man asked the other, "Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?"

"Outstanding," Fred replied. "They taught us all the latest psychological techniques- visualization, association- it made a huge difference for me."

"That's great! What was the clinic name?"

Fred went blank. He thought and thought, but couldn't remember.

Then a smile came across his face and he asked, "What do you call that flower with the long stem and thorns?"

"You mean a rose?"

"Yes, that's it!" He turned to his wife... "Rose, what was the name of that clinic?"