First Free Weekend In A Long Time

So after more than a month of uncertainty, things are beginning to calm down. First off, my Father is on a quick road to recovery. He's still in the hospital, but we are now focuses on recovering versus surviving. So I'm now allowed to be home more. It is still difficult being six hours away from my Dad, but I must admit it's nice to get back into the swing of things.

Don't get me wrong, it's been a refreshing adventure. I can't begin to estimate how many miles I've traveled in the past six weeks. And I have enjoyed some of it. Especially while Dad has been in a Chicago hospital. But I've learn that I'm a not city person. To help illustrate, I've developed a quick pro & con list based on my time spend in the Windy City.

Main Problems: Lotsa' People & Spending Lotsa' Money

Since 80% of my time in Chicago was spent in a hospital room, I'll admit we didn't see the "best" Chicago has to offer. There's something to say though when it comes to temporary living in the city compared to a vacation. We mostly knew the few blocks around the hospital (to find food), the friends' apartment we stayed at, and the bus we used to travel back and forth. That cursed "route 66 to Austin," haunts me in my sleep.

On another note, you can see I'm back at using photoshop for graphics. Ever since we got our new Mac (like a year & a half ago) I've been without photoshop. But now it's back & my old drawing tablet still works! So you could be seeing more of my crude drawings like this:

It's a happy Utahraptor.

A few weeks ago, this article by The one & only Oatmeal about a future dino hotel inspired my childhood love of dinosaurs. Add that to Netflix's instant cue with multiple shows of prehistoric animals (dinosaur or not) and you get a (most likely short) obsession. But can you really say that giant lizards like Utahraptors or fierce mammals like Sabertooths aren't awesome? Didn't think so. Dinosaurs is just one topic I've recently become obsessed with. I'm sure over time I'll add more on here.  Spring is also in the air so I'll be sure to throw in some growing posts once we start the garden back up. Until then, live long and prosper. Like the happy Utahraptor. Until it died. 2.5 million years ago. Most likely cause of environmental changes. There weren't any hippies or Al Gore back then to fight against massive air pollution & global temperature change from volcanoes.