Greetings from the Land of Sun

A quick check of weather.com...

Hey, it's not even that bad in Chicago! Current temp of 23 with a feels like of 11, but a high of 34. In fact, it's going to be in the 40's by the end of the week. That's not bad at all. I think everyone should be pretty happy with that weather, given that it's early in March.

Of course, I suppose it isn't 65 like it is here in Florida. You know, it's funny. It's 65 here and everyone around me here at the Panera is all bundled up in sweaters and sweatshirts. Seriously, the way people talk, I'm half expecting to see someone walk by in a parka. This Florida weather makes you soft, I tell ya. And I've already got a slight sunburn and everyone keeps commenting on how red my forehead is already. Okay, I get it. I'm losing my hair. Everyone look away from the forehead. Nothing more to see here. Yeesh.

This moderately cool weather was great news for Haight who is running the Sarasota 1/2 marathon. We ran yesterday in 80 degree heat with 200% humidity and it was pretty damn tough. Today was much, much easier. Head on over to Haight's Hangout and congratulate him on running the 1/2 marathon we decided to pass on.

Speaking of which, it was a great, great decision on our part to not sign up for the 1/2. Because we are out of shape? Well, we are, but that's not what I'm referring to. No, the problem is that Leah's grandmother is having lots of trouble right now and we need all hands on deck to help take care of both of Leah's grandparents. In fact, I'm the one writing this as Leah is helping admit her grandmother to a new facility as we speak. It's not a good situation for anyone and *nobody* wants to have to worry about a race right now. If we were signed up we'd either a) have wasted a 100 bucks or b) be running a race with no one to watch, all the while feeling guilty that we weren't helping. So, in the end, we were lucky to not sign up early.

We have been running, though. So far we're working ourselves back into it after not running for a couple weeks before vacation by running 40 minutes when we wake up. We're not speedy as we are running just over 4 miles in those 40 minutes, but it's really, really, really nice to be running in shorts and a t-shirt. We plan to run every day and hopefully by the end of the week we'll be feeling sharp again.

Other than that, we're just having a great time visiting with Leah's mom and stepdad and later today we're going to go visit Leah's awesome cousins who (whom?) we haven't seen for 14 months. Think a 7 and 12 year old might have changed a bit in 14 months? I hope we recognize them. Whatever the situation and complications and frustrations, it's always great to see family.

Let's see, what else? I've been getting by ass kicked in chess by Leah's grandfather and stepdad. You know, chess was a lot easier when I played my friends in high school. Ever since I got to college, everyone I've played has known "strategy" and crap like that. It's not enough to just be smart anymore, I need to actually know how to play. Well, that's not going to happen as I only have a passing interest in chess, so I guess I'm going to have to swing by the local elementary school to feel good about my chess skills again.

Oh, and this is cool. Our article in symmetry magazine also made it to the front page of the Fermilab page, www.fnal.gov. That's the very, very main page of the entire lab and our names are in the lead in paragraph for the story. So now every experimental physicist in the world can know that I won over my wife by blowing stuff up. I suppose I won't be asked to work on hardware anytime soon.

And finally, yes, our site was down for awhile. It wasn't just you. Well, it might have been you, I suppose, but it probably wasn't.

Okay, that's all I've got. Time to go back outside into the warmth where I will be wearing sunglasses. Sunglasses!

Oh, and Go Cubs (currently 0-2-1 in ST. yep, these are the Cubs)