I’m running on three hours of sleep right now — we ran out to Ikea and Mitsuwa last night and didn’t get home and to bed until nearly 1am, and I was up at 4am to go pick my mom up and drive her to O’Hare airport. When I got home from the airport I noticed the Wii’s light was on (indicating a new message) so I turned it on and checked the mail.

We had a message that the trial version of the Wii internet browser was available. So of course I downloaded it and tested it out.

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Today I went out to get the mail to find a package on my porch from Kelsey (well, I found two actually, but the one was the last gift for Justin that I was expecting). She had requested my address so I knew something was coming, but I really wasn’t expecting all of this:

I had the dumbest grin on my face when I was opening the package — it seriously made my day week. Especially now that I no longer have a job five minutes away from Mitsuwa and haven’t had a chance to go shopping for sweets.

So thank you Kelsey… I definitely need to take you out to dinner the next time I’m in your neck of the woods.

I just went out running errands wearing jeans, a sweater and my Chucks without socks, and was quite comfortable.

It’s less than a week until Christmas.

In Chicago.

The fourth and final old movie; this one is from September 14, 1961.

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Once again, there’s a flash version behind the link below for those who don’t have the latest version of Quicktime installed.

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Time for more old home movies that were transferred off of 8mm reels. This is the third reel, dated June 26th, 1961. This was filmed nearly a whole year after the previous video. My mom is only in the last ten seconds of this one, and my aunt and uncle are the little ones.

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For those people who have problems downloading and/or viewing iPod-capable MP4 files, I’ve placed a flash video behind the link below. Click on it.

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Here’s the second of four old home movies that recently came into my possesion. This one is dated July 29th, 1960. For reference, my mom is the girl in the white sailor-type short outfit, my aunt is the toddler running around, my grandma is pregnant with my uncle, and my grandpa is the chef.

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For those people who have problems downloading and/or viewing iPod-capable MP4 files, I’ve placed a flash video behind the link below. Click on it.

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At Thanksgiving dinner, my grandmother handed me four 8mm film reels she had acquired from an old family friend years and years earlier. She had no idea what was on said film, but I have a projector and offered to take them home and view them.

Turns out they were old home movies of my grandparents, mom, aunt, uncle and various friends and family, filmed during 1960 and 1961. We’re actually guessing on the dates — the boxes that the reels are in have a month/date written on them, and based on how old my aunt and uncle appear, we can approximate the year.

I sent them all to Digital Transfer Systems (the first place a Google search gave me and oddly enough, out of Northbrook, IL) to be transfered to a MiniDV tape so I could eventually burn DVDs for the family.

So… here’s the first reel, dated March 29th, 1960. This one is short — the first half of the reel was blank.

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For those people who have problems downloading and/or viewing iPod-capable MP4 files, I’ve placed a flash video behind the link below. Click on it.

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The other day — I think it was Saturday — we were woken up by the sound of coyotes howling outside the bedroom window in the wee hours of the morning. We watched them for a few minutes as they investigated a few backyards and eventually wandered off, one on each bank of the retention pond.

We live in a suburban subdivision, with houses all around that are close enough to throw a stone at. I’m not dumb; I know that we humans are slowing chipping away at their habitat and they have no place to go… but it’s still a bit weird for me to know they can get so close.

This isn’t the first time that coyotes have visited our neighborhood, but no matter how many times they come, it’s still really spooky to be woken up by their howling.

Their nocturnal visit, combined with the the fact that I recently read Urban Tails, just reaffirms my belief that I will never allow any of my cats outside (nor allow any future dogs out without close supervision).

I’d like to thank everyone who helped me celebrate another birthday, and all of you who sent birthday wishes via Myspace or elsewhere. I had a pretty good weekend.

Friday I went out to dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack with Justin (of course), my sister Stacy and brother-in-law Rick, and my friends Lynn, Lidia and Jesse. Just to re-iterate… Joe’s is not my favorite restaurant, but I haven’t been there in years and I wanted some crab legs.

After dinner we came back home to play some video games. Rick really kicked ass at boxing on the Wii, and as usual Lynn and I rocked out on Guitar Hero.

Saturday we went to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra at Allstate Arena. This wasn’t a birthday thing, but our Christmas gift to my mom. If you saw that video last year, the one of that house decorated and synced to that song [link], you’ve heard a TSO song.

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My mom had no clue we were going to the show — all along I’ve been telling her that Justin was taking me somewhere for my birthday and wanted her to come along. So she was very surprised when we got there and told her this was her Christmas present.

After the show we went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. As usual the margaritas were strong and the food was excellent.

Aaaannnddd… that’s about it. It’s going to be a laid-back day today. Tomorrow we’re going to Chris and Bridget’s to watch the Bears game.