Rob's family

Grammy made (is making) her annual visit to Olive in Milwaukee this week. So, we took the opportunity to let our girls get to meet their great grandmother. Now, I remember (vaguely) visiting a great grandmother. I'm pretty sure it was in a nursing home, and it wasn't a particularly interactive visit. This was not the case with this visit. Before we left home, Melinda and Gretchen both drew pictures for Grammy and Olive. Melinda drew one each for Olive and Grammy (and wrote their names on them) Gretchen just drew one, but got around the issue of not having something to give to each, by separately giving the one picture separately to each of them. Melinda and Grammy immediately hit it off. Melinda told her stories about school and cooking and everything she could think of. She wanted to sit next to her while we chatted and again when we had lunch (Olive made a ham - the girls' favorite). After lunch we went to the Milwaukee zoo. Olive stayed home - not so big on walk

I wrote this ~12 months after September 11, 2001. I wanted to remember what I was doing on that day when we heard about the planes. The first I knew that something was awry on September 11, 2001 was mid morning. I arrived at the office - same time as always - 7:15. Some time in the 9:00 hour I happened to glance at my.yahoo.com - my frequent home for news. There was a one liner about a plane striking the World Trade Center. I've read about a B-17 striking the Empire State Building some time around WWII. I recall thinking that it wasn't that big of a deal. I think I tried a couple other sources to see if anyone else had more information - no one did. Within 30 minutes my boss asked if I had read anything, "No, not really" I responded. Site inquiries now just timed out. Everyone was connecting to see what they could see. I think I got one through on chicagotribune.com, but the information was about the same. No one knew much. Someone (my boss Mark I thin

I haven't told a home improvement story for a while, so here goes... It starts with our house inspection - 2 1/2 years ago. During the tour, the inspector showed us a soft spot in the guestroom bath floor and said, "I wouldn't stand there, your foot will go right through." We pointed it out and got a $100 credit. We moved in and found, sure enough - the floor was damaged, likely due to some sort of leak. It was ok though as the room is really ugly - REALLY UGLY - olive green fixtures with nasty olive & red flowered wallpaper. Vintage early 70s. I turned off all the water in the room - we'd deal with it when we needed to. Fast forward 2 years. We have NEVER used this bathroom. Several months ago I was between projects in the house and I was bored. I wanted something substantial to do, but the CFO wouldn't release the funds for any significant projects. As I recall, she wanted to paint or some such nonsense. I wanted to DO something. I've m