Tagged!

I've been tagged! My friend Mary Ann "tagged" me for this blog game:
(Mary Ann also started her own blog - you can check it out here!)

ON THIS DAY - Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday (only the month and day). Choose and write down 3 events, 2 births and 1 holiday. Then tag 5 friends.

My birthday = DECEMBER 16th

Events:

• 1773 - American Revolution: Boston Tea Party - Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawks dump crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.
• 1893 - Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, "From The New World" was given its world premiere at Carnegie Hall.
• 1997 - The Pokémon episode Dennō Senshi Porygon triggers attacks of photosensitive epilepsy in hundreds of Japanese children.

Birthdays:

• 1770 - Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer (d. 1827)
• 1945 - Yukio Hattori, Japanese Iron Chef commentator

Holiday:
Happy Kazakhstan Independence Day!

Now I'm tagging my friend Jen! (I don't think I know five people who have blogs! Dogs, yes, but humans...no)

Hot time in Bloomington

Last night we had a visit from the Bloomington Fire Department. I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but there are fire trucks, firemen, and our neighbors in their jammies. Around 11:30, Chuck started smelling smoke in our apartment and woke me up. We couldn't find anything wrong and assumed it was our air conditioning, because the smoke seemed to be coming from that vent. So we called the BFD.


As the firemen were checking out the apartment, our neighbors upstairs got home and realized that it was their apartment causing the problems. One of them had left the house with a pizza in the oven, and now their apartment was a smoky mess. I don't think there was a (big) fire, but it took about an hour for the firemen to suck all of the smoke out with a big fan.

Friends and family - check your smoke detectors! Our neighbors didn't have working batteries in theirs. Ours never went off - we tested it and it seems to be working, but that was a little worrisome.

Today our Maintenance Man Ted came and replaced the filter in our A/C (our A/C sucks the air down from upstairs somehow) and brought an ozone-fan-filter-zapper thing to get the smoke smell out of our house. We are a little smelly, but fine, luckily!

Unfortunately, the purple and yellow royal gramma fish did not make it through the night. She had been sick with a fish disease called "Ick" (no kidding) and I found her this morning at the bottom of the tank. Now the clownfish has Ick but Chuck is successfully treating it. We do have a cute shrimp now as well. Chuck won't be able to get any new fish for several weeks, though. RIP Royal Gramma!

Congratulations Chuck!

Congratulations to Chuck! He was named the new Music Director of the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra! The local Herald-Times newspaper had an article about him and his new appointment. His first concert with the BSO will be on July 1st at 6:30 p.m., outdoors at Bryan Park in Bloomington.

Chuck also had even more big news. He was named the Conducting Fellow of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for this season. No pay, but lots of perks - including free box seats for the Joshua Bell concert last Friday night! It was awesome! We even got to go the private reception for symphony bigwigs at intermission. I am so happy for him - this is a really big deal for him and I think it will give him a lot of good experience and exposure.

So Chuck will be doing a lot of commuting this year - Indy is about an hour north of Bloomington, not to mention his usual trips to Columbus, which is also an hour away.

Uncle Chunkie's Fishies

A posting from Chuck:

So...... I have a new saltwater aquarium now. It's been about three weeks, and Kelley and I have two fishies! And they're just like "Finding Nemo" characters!





We have one Royal Gramma --- just like "Gurgle" (Gurgle is never named in the movie.) Gurgle's the one in the tank who's afraid of germs and scuzzy stuff.




And we have a Percula Clown, just like Nemo and Marlin!




They're the bestest of friends!


.... and on Saturday, we're gonna go get a Cleaner Shrimp, just like Jacques!!!

Unfortunately, there's no room in the tank for Dori, Deb (and Flo), Bloat, Peach or Bubbles. And we'll never be able to afford a Gil.

Toledo Pictures

I am posting a link to the album of photos from our trip to Toledo over Memorial Day Weekend. You can click on the picture below, which will bring you to the album.

Visit to Toledo

We had a great time with all of the munchkins (and grown-ups) and we got to meet niece #4, baby Elise! (She brings the niece/nephew count to 7.) We had a very nice picnic at a state park in Toledo that Monday.

Project Runway update - bad news. It's not going to be back until this winter. I'm very disappointed. Apparently they're filming Season 4 right now.

Barack Obama for President

Now having completed reading "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama, I have decided to whole-heartedly support his candidacy for the presidency of the United States.

He is the leader we need to unite our country and solve its problems.
Ask me if you want more info about him, or if you want to borrow the book!

You can see him in action in the next Democratic debate, which will take place July 23rd on CNN at 7 p.m.

Running

You might have noticed I have something new posted on the right of the blog. This is my running stats, as tabulated by my new iPod nano! It uploads my stats to the nikeplus.com website - I've been having a lot of fun with it.

Chuck's Birthday

Back on May 9th, Chuck turned 28, and I finally agreed to go with him to the vegetarian restaurant in town, Roots.



The appetizer came out, and it didn't look so bad. Chicken fingers, maybe?



No such luck. It was fried seitan, a wheat gluten product. With a little ketchup, it would have tasted like chicken fingers, though.

Wheat gluten, let me remind you, was the ingredient in all of the pet food that contained the poison and got recalled recently.



I don't even remember what Chuck had now, and looking at the picture, I certainly can't recognize it. The only thing that looked "safe" on the menu for me to order was Thai Curry peanut noodles. Note that the word "Curry" is contained in the title. And this was the SAFEST thing!!! Very scary. The noodles actually turned out to be pretty good, and I even ate the leftovers.

But I don't want to go back any time soon.



My thoughts exactly, Lenny!