Terre Haute Visit with the Gormongs

Last Saturday we went over to Terre Haute to visit with Randi and Joe. They just moved into their new house on the south side of the city. This cute little one is their daughter Rachel, and you can see that she was having fun rolling around in the new living room.
Aunt Jill was helping Mom give Rachel a bath. I think this might have been the first bath in the big tub.
We stopped by the Terre Haute Auto Zone to see if they had these for Jill's car, but they were fresh out. Actually this is a picture from the Apple Festival in Cory, Indiana. It was more like a town fair, but we all had a good time checking out some small town fun.
This is the happy family unit in front of their new home. Nice "do" Rachel.

Minnesota 42, Purdue 35 (Double OT)

Unfortunately Purdue couldn't get it done against Laurence Maroney and the Golden Gophers. They took the game to double overtime, but couldn't stop Minnesota from scoring twice, and the game was lost. It was the first win for the Gophers over Purdue since Joe Tiller has been in West Lafayette, but it hurt pretty bad nonetheless. We taped the game, and didn't watch any highlights all day so we could watch the tape when we returned home from Terre Haute on Saturday. Jill knew the outcome, but I watched, stupidly, until the final gun. It wasn't a complete waste of time, but I was pretty ticked when I saw that we lost. At least we should beat Notre Dame on Saturday, that'll make me feel better...

Backyard Patio

Over the past couple weekends we've been adding onto the backyard to make it more "user-friendly". Of course by that I mean that it couldn't really be used for anything at all, so we wanted to change that. We put in a patio of 16" square pavers on gravel (not cemented in). That way we could always change it if we feel like something different. The picture above is me putting in the fabric weed barrier that goes under the gravel - to keep the patio free of small trees growing up between the blocks.
After the fabric, the gravel and blocks go on top. Not real complicated, although hot and lower-back taxing.
After we got done with the blocks, we put in mums, mulch, and hibiscuses (hibisci?). We also got a round table and chairs. It's good for reading the morning paper or having dinner before dark.

Purdue 31, Arizona 24

Saturday night Jill and I listened to the Purdue game on the fuzzy AM radio while working in the backyard. We had to listen to it because it wasn't on TV, due to the game being in Arizona at 9:00 p.m. Purdue pulled off the win, and the picture above WAS NOT taken with our camera. It's a picture from another website, but you can see Brandon Kirsch diving over a defender and into the end zone, or maybe just trying not to fumble the ball.

Purdue 49, Akron 24

On September 10th Jill and I went up to West Lafayette to watch the Boilermakers kick off the 2005 football season. There are a lot of high expectations around Purdue this year, so we'll have to wait and see what actually plays out on the field. They looked good on offense in this game, but not so good on defense. The picture above is when they took the field in the opening of the game, with the "Extra Special" in the middle. It's a golf cart converted to look like a little locomotive.
Sportin' Jill's new visor. It was a hot one, and I became the usual farmer-tanned redneck.
Jerod Void (far left) decided to be good this year. He ran for over 100 yards and a touchdown.
It's not very often (which is a good thing) that we go out in public in matching t-shirts, but to support the alma mater, we'll do it. We had a great time at the game, and look forward to many more big wins this year.

Detroit Rock City! - Labor Day Weekend

On Labor Day weekend we went up to Detroit to visit our friends Jason and Meredith. They bought a nice house in Livonia (a few miles West of Detroit) and we stayed there for the weekend. We spent time checking out the local sights, getting together with some of their friends, going to the movies, and hitting a major league baseball game.
Of course, Chase the Dog was excited to go and make a new friend, Porter the Pooch. They had a great time playing together, sometimes a bit too rough, but that's just dogs for ya. I think they both wish their owners would buy them a brother dog, but for now they'll both have to get by with their respective kitties to torment.
On Sunday we hit Comerica Park to watch the Detroit Tigers take on the Cleveland Indians. It was a perfect day for the ballgame, but unfortunately the Tigers struggled mightily and only got 4 or 5 hits and no runs. We didn't have the stomach for a "World's Greatest Hot Dog", but we did hit some $6.00 Cokes and of course no trip to the stadium would be complete without a Lemon Ice (ballgames are 50% about the food, 50% about the game).
This was the view from our seats - not too shabby. Jason got us some tickets with his "corporate discount". Big shot :)...

More house changes!

We have just about finished our bedroom. We decided to paint it red. 3 coats later it is starting to look the way we wanted it to!

Hurricane Katrina

Don Pippens of Jacobs Construction (another company working on my project at Eli Lilly) went down to Gulfport, Mississippi - with a rented Bobcat and chainsaws in tow. They went to help do clean up of downed trees and other debris created when the Hurricane went through. He showed me his pictures, and I thought it would be interesting to post what some people are doing about the disaster in the South.

Trees that aren't uprooted still show evidence of the strong winds that bent them over.
Destruction typical of buildings in Gulfport. Fallen trees on a home.