And this is a big problem?

Aaron and I were at a neighborhood pool hall this past weekend, and we thought one of their posted signs was particularly funny...

Douglas County Fair

Ah, Fair Season is here...

Philadelphia Freedom

I was in Philadelphia all week for a conference... it's a pretty cool city! I had a nice time, even though almost all of the time was spent at conference sessions. I got to walk around town for a while on Tuesday afternoon, and I checked out the Liberty Bell and some of the old buildings in the historic district of town. Security is pretty tight at the Liberty Bell, which surprised me... not that it's not cool and all, but if you were going to engage in a destructive act, would the Liberty Bell be high on your list? I think not, but whatever.

In any case, I had a good time. My flight was out of the Philadelphia airport at 7:45 on Thursday morning - the same morning that the terror plot in London was foiled. As you can imagine, airport security was insanely tight. Since everything had just happened, no one traveling knew about the tight carry-on restrictions. Including myself. I got up to the security checkpoint, and they took all my makeup. That's right. Lipstick. I can't really blame them - I'd rather lose my makeup than be exploded, but I am still a little sad about my lipsticks.

Freakin' Awesome Cat

That's right. Milo is awesome.

Is it fall yet?

Summer is starting to drag on a little. I can only take so much triple-digit weather before I start thinking of October...

Last week in Cincinnati was great. It was wonderful getting to spend a week at home seeing everyone. Aaron & I drove in on Friday after work, and got into Cincinnati around 4 a.m. It was a long drive, and very rainy for the last few hours of it. We went out on Saturday night and we went to the Kluesener family picnic on Sunday. It was a very fun weekend.


We drove to the Dayton Airport on Monday morning (at 3 a.m.) to get Aaron on a plane to KC. So he went to work on Monday morning, and I went back to sleep. The rest of the week was more relaxed... I got to visit almost everyone. Thursday and Friday were spent bridge testing with some cohorts from UC, and Saturday was the lonely drive home.

I made incredible time driving, all the way to St. Louis. Record times. However, a freak thunderstorm made an appearance while I was on the loop around StL, and that stopped things for about 20 minutes. It was hands-down the worst thunderstorm that I have ever been in a car during. I don't say "driving", because no one on I-70 was driving during this craziness. Traffic stopped. Everyone sat in their cars for 20 minutes while lightening striked everywhere and hail flew horizontally through the air - it was completely insane. Almost as quickly as it started, it moved through. I was glad to drive out of that one. After that, there was more record-setting speed, all the way until the east side of Kansas City, where traffic once again stopped. It stunk getting so close to home only to sit, but sit I did. I was glad to get home, see Aaron, and crack a beer.