Little Bear

The house search begins anew again today, this time without the worries of possibly having two house payments to manage.  We are scheduled to see 10 houses today, from New Berlin, to Vernon, to Mukwonago, and possibly even Eagle.  I hope we don’t exhausted too soon.  Dad has volunteered again to watch Ben while we are away after having done the same yesterday. 

I was a little nervous leaving Ben yesterday because Dad had just turned on Sesame Street for him and went back to bed.  What trouble could Ben get into without any supervision!  At that moment I remembered the little scare I had watching Ben the night before while Jet and Dad were out grocery shopping.  Ben and I were watching Game 1 of the World Series when he started getting a little rambunctious, as he often has a tendency to do.  Ben was rolling around next to me on Dad’s couch when he fell off backwards, hitting the back left side of his head on the square corner of Dad’s coffee table on the way down.  After a second or two of shock, Ben began to cry.  Only a few seconds later, blood began to spill profusely from the spot on his head where he struck the table.  Lucky there was a small towel nearby that I could grab to control the bleeding.  After it was all said and done, Ben had a big lump on his head and what only appeared to be a decent scratch – nothing requiring stitches.  Kristin informed me that minor head cuts often produce a lot of blood, so that appeared to be the case this time.  Yeah, how could Dad do any worse than me!

Today is the official day for trick-or-treating in Milwaukee, though I don’t know if Ben will take part.  The weather has taken a turn for the worse in the past day (windy, colder) and Kristin’s kids have all been recently sick – Josh the latest and perhaps has yet to fully recover.  Trick-or-treat takes place from 1:00 – 4:00pm, so we may either be still looking at houses (hopefully not) or Ben may be down for a nap (more likely).  So Ben has all of that working against him trick-or-treating today.  At least he was able to get out and do it last weekend, though Ben has asked to go trick-or-treating again a few times on the way to school during the week.  Who knows – if a lot of trick-or-treaters come to the door of Dad’s house today, perhaps that will keep Ben awake and anxious to get out there as well.  We will see.  Last night as we were going to bed, I told Ben for the first time “night night little bear”, and without any hesitation, Ben responded “night night big bear”, then promptly rolled over to his side and fell asleep.  That was a moment that will stick with me for a long time.

Media Hound

It just keeps coming!  The story I was interviewed for a few weeks back regarding the ‘virtual team’ project I am having my students participate in was released today on the UWW media page.  A few hours later I got a request to give an interview about this to WCLO, a local radio station in Janesville.  The interview was over the phone and short (10 minutes), which was nice because I did it in the spare 15 minutes I had between classes today.  The reporter said that he would cut down and produce the report, which is good because I am sure that I spoke a mile-a-minute.  I don’t know if I can ever listen to WCLO because I never pass that way, but I hope they do put that interview on their Website so I can hear it.

I have volunteered to help with a technology camp tomorrow called Cyber Girlz, which will be held in downtown Milwaukee (at Northwestern Mutual) and is something that I am really looking forward to.  Maybe I will get lucky and have a chance to have lunch with Jet tomorrow since the Chase building downtown is just a few blocks away.  Kristin has graciously volunteered to watch Ben for the day while I am away, and if the weather cooperates, Ben will join his cousins in decorating for Halloween.  With weather in Wisconsin, that is no sure thing. 

Things have been relatively quiet all week, which is good.  I’d like to say things are easier and stress-free because our house is ‘almost’ sold, but you get rid of one stress, and two more pop up. It has been a good month or so since we looked at houses, but that will pick up again this weekend as we will be looking at homes in the Mukwonago area.  Hopefully we can find something that we both like so that bit of stress can go away.  Stress has shown up in many ways too.  One thing that I am not proud of is that I have now gained 20 pounds since moving back to Wisconsin.  20 pounds!  In 3 months!  I have no idea where our iPod shuffle is that I loved to listen to while running, so I just went online and bought a new one yesterday to give me some ‘extra’ motivation to start running again.  Since it is getting a little too cold to go running outside, I plan to use the indoor track a lot at UWW over the next few weeks.  This weight gain has got to stop now!

House Sold?

Well, our last post mentioned how we had left our real estate agent after 6 months and planned to sell the house ourselves.  Our agent picked up her sign earlier in the week and Donald and Linda put a “for sale by owner” sign out with flyers shortly after.  Jet called me on Saturday morning letting me know that our agent called us back.  The couple that put the earlier offer on our house (the only couple that did) put in a much better offer.  We countered.  They accepted our counter on Saturday evening.  If it all does come through, we would be taking roughly a $15-20,000 loss on the house.  The relief in having the house sold?  Priceless.  Hopefully everything pans outs.

With that bit of big news, there were a few other “fall” things that we did this weekend.  Kristin, Ty, and Sam came over on Saturday night and we went trick-or-treating in my Dad’s neighborhood.  The city of Milwaukee officially has trick-or-treating next week Saturday (on Halloween), so I am not sure if this neighborhood will have to do trick-or-treating twice.  On Sunday morning I raked leaves at Dad’s house, only to come home in the evening newly littered with another coat of leaves.  We watched the Packer game at Kristin’s and at halftime, Kristin and I went out to cut wood.  Kristin was at it cutting with the chain saw while I took the ax.  I split about two logs and took a quick break inside.  That quick break became a long break as I fell asleep.  When I came back outside, Kristin was tearing up the rest of the wood with the ax, putting me to great shame.  I played football outside with Josh and Ty for a little while after until Ty was run into and got a big knot on his cheek.  Then Jet carved pumpkins with Ben and Sam.  It really was a full weekend of “fall” stuff.

The article that I was interviewed for by the Journal Sentinel appeared in Sunday’s paper.  Kristin complained that I wasn’t on the front page of the paper.  I wondered why my 30 minute conversation resulted in a one sentence statement in the article.  Everyone wondered why I was called “Andrew P. Ciganek” instead of “Dr. Andrew Ciganek” or something else.  Oh well, my 3 seconds of fame appear to be about tapped out.

It All Evens Out

After a tough start to the week (Ben sick, pulled over by the police), things have taken a dramatic 180 degree turn.  Ben got over the fever on Wednesday, which was the same day that I received word that another paper of mine was accepted for publication in a journal (my second within a month).  I then got word on Friday that I was elected to the faculty senate at UW-Whitewater, something that was very unexpected because it is only my first semester at UWW.  And to top things off, the result of what was video recorded in my class two weeks ago was used for the grand opening of Hyland Hall on Friday.  Although there are only a few short clips with my students and me in it, somehow I am featured (briefly) at the start of the video.  A picture from the video is included below while the entire video can be viewed here.  I guess it all does even out.

Things have still been busy around here.  Jet is still working overtime during the week, but it is no longer mandatory for her to come in on weekends, which is good.  Ben, Dad, and I met up with Kristin and the boys for a fish fry at a Masonic lodge in Brookfield last night.  The fish was good (not outstanding, but Kristin and Dad I am sure would beg to differ) and the potato salad was excellent – the closest I have ever tried to the kind Dad makes.  Trick-or-treating is this weekend, but with the rain and cold weather, we will see how this all turns out.  I have a bit of work to catch-up on at school, so things will continue to be busy for the forseeable future.

Just to update about our house in Alabama – it still hasn’t sold.  It has been six months since we went with the top agent in Oxford, but that didn’t seem to help.  We ended our contract with the agent this week and are now trying to sell the house on our own.  Hopefully by reducing the price (from the savings of no real-estate agent fees) will be enough to finally sell the house.  Here is our flyer and our posting on Craigslist.  Please pass this on to anyone that might be interested in getting a house in Oxford, Alabama!

Dr. Andrew P. Ciganek

Give It A Day

So Ben was sick with a fever (102.5) through Tuesday – not sure what that was or where it came from, but we are glad that it is gone.  Ben stayed home on Tuesday and Dad watched him through the day.  It is such a luxury to have him around to do this now that both Jet and I are working full-time.

We had a reprieve from the miserable weather yesterday (Wednesday).  I stepped out during the lunch hour to go play basketball with other faculty (the same group of guys play basketball Monday-Friday during lunch) and was pleasantly surprised to feel warmth in the air.  At the risk of sounding trite, it felt like I was back in Alabama.  At that moment I wished I had my iPod shuffle with me so that I could go running instead.  That was a good feeling.  Thinking about cold days in Alabama, I don’t ever recall the weather reminding me of Wisconsin, that is, a crisp, cold, and fresh, biting air.  Surely those cold days in Alabama (when it would actually get below 30 degrees!) didn’t prompt me to go out running.

At the start of my class that afternoon, a student asked if we could have class outside instead.  I am not sure how I would be able to podcast a class outside, but it was a nice thought.  As a compromise, I ended class about 10 minutes early under the condition that the students would all go outside and spend that class time outside walking around.  Everyone was pretty happy about this, but I don’t think many (if any) actually did go outside directly after my class.

And as the old saying goes, if you don’t like the weather, give it a day, it will change.  Today the weather is just plain miserable.  Raining.  Cold.  Wet.  Someone in the hallway today complained about the poor weather we were having.  I responded that we have miserable days like this so that we can better appreciate the nice days (like yesterday) we have.  If I could only always have a positive spin on things.

Got A Ticket

Ben woke-up at 4:00am with a fever this morning – a harbinger of how the day would play out.  Ben went back to sleep and we had plans for Ben to stay home with Dad for the day, but when I was leaving at 6:00am, he showed no signs of a fever and got very upset that I was leaving for school without him.  We relented and Ben was just fine on the way to Whitewater this morning, singing and looking out for cows and horses, just like usual. 

Heading into my meetings in the afternoon and class I didn’t give much thought to Ben, however, I had two messages waiting for me on voicemail after I finished class at 3:30pm.  Calls from the children’s center – Ben had a fever and needed to be picked up.  As it turned out, Ben was just “not himself” today as he skipped lunch, went to sleep at 11:00am and was still sleeping when I picked him up at 3:45pm. 

You could tell Ben was not feeling well as he was in and out of sleep for the entire ride home.  Right when I got off of the freeway, Ben threw up the only snack he ate on the way home – raisins.  About a minute later I rushed through a yellow light turning red and, sure enough, a Wauwatosa police car was waiting in an alley to pull me over.  I have a history of no luck getting out of a ticket, although it has been over 8 years since my last ticket.  Surely I would have a chance here as I really did need to get Ben home to clean him up and get him some medicine.  No luck.  The police officer was young (late 20’s) and appeared nervous as his hand was shaking when I gave him my license.  He just ignored everything I said about Ben and walked to his car. 

About 10 minutes later, Ben threw-up again.  I got out of my car to clean him up and the police officer came out to see if everything was OK.  It clearly wasn’t (at least to me), but the police officer just said that it would be a few more minutes because I had an out-of-state license.   The police officer returned with the ticket and my license after about 25-30 minutes from when I was first pulled over and he wished Ben well. 

I was off for Dad’s house right after then where Jet was waiting to give Ben some Motrin.  His temperature was 102.2 and I just feel beat.  I am not upset that I got a ticket because I shouldn’t have gone through the yellow-red light.  The police officer was just doing his job.  I just feel beat after a long day.  Hopefully Ben gets over this soon.

Here are some pictures from when Kristin took Ben with the kids out to pick apples and pumpkins yesterday.  At least these can make the mood a little lighter.

Sweetest Day

We celebrated “Sweetest Day” yesterday – a holiday like Valentine’s Day, but apparently is only celebrated in the Midwest.  I remember my first year living in Alabama trying to find something – anything to get Jet for the holiday, and had a lot of strange looks from people when I asked store clerks for ideas for the holiday.  The best response I heard from someone about the “manufactured” holiday down in Alabama was from Danny, who responded that he thought having more days to show that you care about someone was not a bad idea.  So for this holiday, I took Ben with me to a local flower shop and had him pick out flowers to give Jet.  Ben loves the color yellow, so it was no surprise that he picked out a bunch of yellow flowers set in a smiley-face coffee mug.  We then surprised Jet with the flowers at her work, which we could tell she enjoyed.  Jet had to work for a good part of the day yesterday, so to finish celebrating the holiday, we visited Maggiano’s for dinner.  Jet knows that I don’t like eating there, so that was truly dinner for her.  It was a very good holiday for both of us, however.

I took Dad and Ben out to Fleet Farm yesterday for the opening of “Toyland”, the big Christmas opening held every year.  I remembered seeing commercials and other advertisements for this event every year, but I never went there for it, so I didn’t know what to expect.  We received a catalog in the mail last week for it, which Ben just loved paging through as if it were a storybook, pointing out all of the toys that he wanted.  To tell you the truth, “toyland” was nothing out-of-the ordinary as the store just had their Christmas stuff out on display.  The day there was anything but ordinary as it was hard to find a parking spot and even harder to walk through some of the toy aisles in the store with all of the people around.  The trip was well worth it, though, as every 5-10 seconds there would be another gasp from Ben with a “wow” after seeing another wall of farm toys, tractors, or animals on display.  We didn’t buy anything at Fleet Farm, but we didn’t plan on buying anything.  We did stop by and pick up another pumpkin from a roadside trailer on the way home.  Ben picked out a huge pumpkin (only $3) for “Pa Pa”.  Ben is so proud of his pumpkins.

The weather has just been poor around here for the past two weeks.  I can’t really say it was bad, because I know that it will get much, much worse in the coming months.  At least the forecast is for temperatures in the 50’s for much of the coming week.  The days are getting much shorter too as the sun doesn’t come up until we have almost reached Whitewater in the morning, or at around 7:15am in the morning.  We are still two weeks away from Halloween, so these changes are a little hard to believe.  We did take some pictures of Ben at the mall yesterday in his costume.  We’ll just see how cool it gets when he goes trick-or-treating this year compared to last.

The Elegant Farmer

We met up with our new friends again on Sunday, this time at the Elegant Farmer in Mukwonago to pick out a pumpkin for Ben.  It was only 37 degrees out at 11:00am when we arrived and there were already hundreds of people walking around getting food (and pies) at the main shop.  Across the street were many hundreds more over in their apple orchards picking apples and getting hayrides over to the pumpkin patch. 

We got our tickets for the hayride and had to wait in line for about 20 minutes until it was our turn – they had five different tractors taking people around non-stop.  While waiting in line, Jet got us all warm apple cider donuts and fresh cider which was just delicious.  It was so cold out when the wind picked up, and Jet and I felt awful for not getting gloves for Ben to wear as he complained that it was could out.  Just to show you how used I am to the cold, I only wore a sweatshirt without a jacket.  I guess spending the past 3 years in Alabama has made me forget how to properly dress for the cool temperatures. 

Once we got on the hayride, Ben and T had a blast.  The first stop was the apple orchards where most of the riders got off.  We stayed on for the next stop – the pumpkin patch.  Ben was so excited all weekend long to get a pumpkin of his own.  Everyday we pass a trailer full of pumpkins just outside of Whitewater that Ben claims as his own.  I think Ben was just relieved to actually get one. 

We walked all around the pumpkin patch, which had lots of tall grass around and was not what we were expecting.  The last pumpkin patch Jet and I were at was in Cedarburg about 4 years ago, which was a field of mud with tons of pumpkins scattered around.  Here we had to hunt for them.  Ben and T got so excited when they found one, but for Ben, he didn’t like any of the pumpkins we saw.  After about 15-30 minutes of walking around the to back of the fields, we started heading back to the pick-up point for the tractor hayride.  While on the way, our friends spotted a pumpkin with knots all over on the outside of it and they immediately took a liking to it.  Robin had mentioned that they were the type of people to go for the “Charlie Brown Christmas tree”.  After picking out that pumpkin, it was easy to see that it was true.  I also think that action speaks volumes about the kind of people they are.  How are we always so lucky to find such special people?

Just feet before we reached the pick-up point, Ben ran up to a pumpkin laying on its side.  Once there, he exclaimed “My pumpkin!” – the only one he did that to in the entire patch.  The pumpkin was a bit oblong and not the best looking, but we could tell that Ben had set his heart on this one, so how could we refuse.  It was almost as if Ben had been searching around all of that time just for this very pumpkin.  Ben was so proud. 

Once we the hayride took us back to the starting point, we stopped into the main shop to pick up an apple pie and some apples.  When in Rome, right?  Jet got a sliced apple with caramel and chopped peanuts sprinkled over them for the ride home.  Again, delicious, and just hit the spot.

It was only yesterday that we got Ben his pumpkin, but Ben has already asked me several times to go back and take another ride on the tractor to get second pumpkin.  I guess that’s all the proof you need to know that he had a good time.

Media Man

I guess it is kind of funny the way things work sometimes.  On Wednesday, I was interviewed by the UWW newspaper (the Royal Purple) about a “virtual” team project that my project management students are working on this semester; my student teams are paired with teams from universities around the world to complete a team project.  During that interview, I made mention of my fantasy football experiment in my introduction to information systems class, to which I got an e-mail about yesterday (Friday) that they would like to do another story on that.  In my Website development class on Thursday, a campus video camera stopped by to film me teaching, which I suspect is part of a news bit being put together about the facilities at the new business building.  Then yesterday (Friday) afternoon, I got a phone call from a reporter from the Journal-Sentinal wanting to interview me about the presentation I gave last week in the Wisconsin Dells.  As it turned out, he is a reporter for their business section, was doing a story about a northern Wisconsin woman that was using search engine optimization (SEO, or the topic of my presentation last week), and wanted to know if I thought SEO for small businesses was a viable strategy.  All of this hopeful will result in some good press for our department – we need more IT majors!

Things got a bit colder this week.  It was in the upper 30’s to low 40’s every morning with highs only in the 50’s.  And finally this morning we had frost everywhere at it was only 30 degrees out.  It was bound to happen sooner or later.  And now there is a chance for snow in the next couple days.  It was bound to happen sooner or later.  I don’t really mind the temperatures or the snow (yet), but starting the cars and warming them up in the morning.  I really feel pampered after not having to deal with that for the past 3 years.

We got our first offer on our house this year, but it was $40,000 less than what we were asking.  We are willing to come down a couple thousand on the price, but not that much.  Hopefully something else will come up.  Our 6 month contract with our real estate agent is almost here, so we are hoping that some friends back in Alabama might be willing to buy our house – passing all of the savings from no real estate agent fees onto the selling price.  We just want our house sold and we have already accepted the fact that we will be doing it at a loss.

Something that I have not mentioned in my posts in the past few weeks is that Ben no longer has Buddy – his stuffed teddy bear.  About 3 weeks ago we lost Buddy, so instead of turning the house upside down, we decided it was a good time to ween Ben off his favorite companion.  Ben took it in stride as we explained that Buddy went to see his aunt (P’Pook) and grandma (Yai) in Thailand.  Every so often Ben will ask where Buddy is (only about 5 times), but every so often he will also ask when I am driving to school if I could drive to Thailand instead.  Ben became attached to a blanket as a substitute for Buddy during those first two weeks, but for the last week he has not needed anything to comfort him.  Leaving Buddy behind has gone about as smooth as breaking Ben from his pacifier.  Jet did find Buddy after a day or two of searching, but we have stayed firm in keeping Buddy hidden – who has been at his side for the past 2 years.  We have done a little more work on potty training Ben this past week and have had some success.  Hopefully this will be something that will be as easy as the transition from Buddy.

Waukesha Thai Temple

Just reached halftime of the Packer game and I wanted to give a quick update from the weekend.  We did go to the Waukesha Thai Temple (http://buddhahaksa.org/) on Sunday and met up with Jet’s host family, Jack and Kathryn.  Jet has known them for 10 years and that was the first time that they had visited the Thai temple and they had a good time.  Jet’s host family are both faculty members at UW-Milwaukee and have an interest in teaching in Thailand.  We have talked about arranging something for the past few months, but it appears that during Christmas 2010 might be an option.  We also saw our latest friends (Robin and her adopted son “T”) and they had a good time too.  What a nice way to wind down the week.