Indiana Wants Me

Went up to Fort Wayne to pick Vicki's mom up for Mothers' Day, her birthday, and Trenton's baptism.

Pretty uneventful trip. I did notice the old sign for the old Ramada in Effingham from when it was Keller's, discarded out between the hotel parking lot and the gas station parking lot. That was a very significant landmark over the years in our travels back and forth to Indiana, or just meeting in the middle to send the kids to stay with Papa & Grammy for a week or two, or to pick them up after a visit. We used to eat lunch there at Thelma's restaurant.

There were birthday dinners and a birthday lunch during the week. I started riding my bicycle to work again. But Wednesday after work I came out to a flat tire and Vicki had to pick me up. Then Thursday was the guitar lesson. Friday lunch with the Unraths. I fixed the tire. And monday/tuesday this week we drove Mom back home. And yesterday and this morning the new heat pump is being installed. Plus I'm having an integrated humidifier put in for the whole house. That'll be nice.

Kevin came out Saturday evening sans Angela, who was on call this weekend. So I didn't get the big family pic taken. He went out with a childhood friend and hit a few bars that night. Sunday we went down to Warsaw for Trenton's baptism and stayed for a BBQ lunch at the Carletons' place. Nice group of people. We really like them.

Trenton slept through most of the church service until maybe 10-15 minutes before it was time to be doused. He was NOT happy about the dousing. I was struck by the ... church-inappropriate dress that many people wore, and the general lack of control a lot of parents have over their kids. Even the acolite wore dirty old tennis shoes.One young woman who sat in front of us (apparently oblivious to the "reserved" seating for the baptism) had her two kids running all over, making noise, messing with the candle lighter, and just generally being distracting. At one point the mother bent over and revealed the tattoo on the small of her back and the tag of her underwear. It was hard not to laugh. Kevin and I looked at each other. I know... we're supposed to be happy that they're there at all. But I wonder. Are you really "there" if you aren't prepared and in the proper mindset of respectfulness & decorum?

That being said, I'd say the majority of people there were dressed ok and behaved.

Yesterday I took my GPS apart to try to fix it's little problem with horizontal lines across the display. I've been able to "fix" it by rapping it against my hand when it does this for the last few years, but it was getting worse. It seems better except that now the very top of the screen seems to have the problem permanently now. I want an HCX one anyway.... hmmmm.

It didn't help matters that when we were coming back from Indiana, I was apparently whizzing by the airport just a little TOO fast and got pulled over for my second-ever speeding ticket. I'm usually paying more attention than that. This is a wide section of highway -- "Super 70" -- that they've basically made two separate multi-lane highways each way with ample shoulders that handles the traffic there. And NO on/off access in the section we were on. I've seen pretty narrow stretches of 70 where the speed limit is 70. But here, it's 55 for some strange reason. Oh well. Lesson learned. I imagine it's a great revenue source for Marion county.